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8,179,700 | 8,179,119 | 1 | 2 | 8,178,825 | train | <story><title>What I Saw in Ferguson</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/saw-ferguson</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dodders</author><text>For a good insight into how city police are trained, I recommend reading Cop In The Hood by Peter Moskos.<p>Peter joined the Baltimore Police and describes how they were taught to &quot;own the situation&quot;, which in effect means responding with escalating force until the situation is under control. This approach is evident in the reports from both the Washington Post and Al Jazeera journalists. From the book&#x27;s description of the training, there appeared to be little effort to educate on correct responses for different situations.<p>I have friends in the UK Police force (I am not a cop myself) that tell me they are taught how to diffuse situations rather than escalate them and that getting into a violent confrontation is seen as a last resort, not a first response.<p>I have every sympathy with the police, and the tough job that they face, but I can&#x27;t help but feel that the differences in approach and specifically the inflexibility of the US police training does not help them.</text></comment> | <story><title>What I Saw in Ferguson</title><url>http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/saw-ferguson</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>paulannesley</author><text>Well written; horrifying.<p>&gt; His prone figure sprawled on the street for four hours in the unforgiving August sun, with blood on the asphalt—an indignity in sharp contrast with the quick departure of the officer from the scene.<p>&gt; Police, some outfitted in riot gear, others in military fatigues, barricaded the streets. At least one of them draped a black bandana over his face; others covered their badges.<p>&gt; One homeowner walked out of his house to find a spent flash grenade on his lawn. An armored truck rolled down the street, a flume of tear gas issuing from the back.</text></comment> |
37,411,705 | 37,411,599 | 1 | 2 | 37,407,331 | train | <story><title>Why Socialism? (1949)</title><url>https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>legitster</author><text>&gt; Well, unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism.<p>Says who? The only &quot;requirement of capitalism&quot; is that individuals are allowed to have ownership rights. Outside of a few niche organizations that benefit from economic distress, I think you will find a general S&amp;P 500 consensus that low employment is a <i>good</i> thing for their stock prices.<p>&gt; There&#x27;s generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.<p>That&#x27;s because, in a free society, we have discovered that it&#x27;s better to get people new and better jobs than be shackled to a milling machine from childhood.</text></item><item><author>mullingitover</author><text>&gt; Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem.<p>Well, unemployment is kind of a <i>requirement</i> of capitalism. You can&#x27;t have the labor force calling the shots, it eats into profits. From the article:<p>&gt; There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists.<p>He&#x27;s being generous here, it&#x27;s not just that an &quot;army of the unemployed&quot; almost always exists, it&#x27;s a goal. Captains of industry in the current low-unemployment environment have been saying the quiet part out loud, that we need to <i>increase</i> unemployment. There&#x27;s generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.</text></item><item><author>legitster</author><text>&gt; Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?<p>It&#x27;s a pretty well written piece. I think people from all perspectives should take careful note of what he is actually advocating: discussing and figuring out the mechanisms of what a modern society should like rather than blindly following an agenda.<p>That said, this is a 70+ year old article, based on ideas and problems at the time. Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem. College will only be a means to a career? Today academia is powerful and a political force unto itself. And we have so many welfare programs and safety nets and worker protects than Einstein was even able to dream about in 1949. In a way, we are living in a world he was advocating for.<p>If it was written today, I have no doubt Einstein would still care about inequality and education and politics and common &quot;workers&quot; enjoying life. But I also don&#x27;t think I would see him caring as much about Marxism and the labor theory of value specifically as a mechanism for understanding it anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thiagoharry</author><text>&gt; Says who? The only &quot;requirement of capitalism&quot; is that individuals are allowed to have ownership rights. Outside of a few niche organizations that benefit from economic distress, I think you will find a general S&amp;P 500 consensus that low employment is a good thing for their stock prices.<p>If unemployment did not exist, the capitalist class would have no power to make workers work harder using the threat of losing their jobs. Of course, very high unemployment is not good for capitalism, nobody was arguing this. But very low unemployment below some threshold is also bad. Marx explained this, but if you do not believe him, capitalists themselves and their theorists say exactly the same thing, but with more gentle and less direct words: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;insights&#x2F;downside-low-unemployment&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.investopedia.com&#x2F;insights&#x2F;downside-low-unemploym...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Why Socialism? (1949)</title><url>https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>legitster</author><text>&gt; Well, unemployment is kind of a requirement of capitalism.<p>Says who? The only &quot;requirement of capitalism&quot; is that individuals are allowed to have ownership rights. Outside of a few niche organizations that benefit from economic distress, I think you will find a general S&amp;P 500 consensus that low employment is a <i>good</i> thing for their stock prices.<p>&gt; There&#x27;s generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.<p>That&#x27;s because, in a free society, we have discovered that it&#x27;s better to get people new and better jobs than be shackled to a milling machine from childhood.</text></item><item><author>mullingitover</author><text>&gt; Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem.<p>Well, unemployment is kind of a <i>requirement</i> of capitalism. You can&#x27;t have the labor force calling the shots, it eats into profits. From the article:<p>&gt; There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists.<p>He&#x27;s being generous here, it&#x27;s not just that an &quot;army of the unemployed&quot; almost always exists, it&#x27;s a goal. Captains of industry in the current low-unemployment environment have been saying the quiet part out loud, that we need to <i>increase</i> unemployment. There&#x27;s generally a target of 5% unemployment, which means capitalism has built-in waste.</text></item><item><author>legitster</author><text>&gt; Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?<p>It&#x27;s a pretty well written piece. I think people from all perspectives should take careful note of what he is actually advocating: discussing and figuring out the mechanisms of what a modern society should like rather than blindly following an agenda.<p>That said, this is a 70+ year old article, based on ideas and problems at the time. Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? If anything we worry about the opposite problem. College will only be a means to a career? Today academia is powerful and a political force unto itself. And we have so many welfare programs and safety nets and worker protects than Einstein was even able to dream about in 1949. In a way, we are living in a world he was advocating for.<p>If it was written today, I have no doubt Einstein would still care about inequality and education and politics and common &quot;workers&quot; enjoying life. But I also don&#x27;t think I would see him caring as much about Marxism and the labor theory of value specifically as a mechanism for understanding it anymore.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kmkemp</author><text>Generally speaking, low unemployment leads to the Fed raising rates, the anticipation of which, hurts stock prices.</text></comment> |
18,643,583 | 18,643,603 | 1 | 2 | 18,641,796 | train | <story><title>Inside Rust's Async Transform</title><url>https://blag.nemo157.com/2018/12/09/inside-rusts-async-transform.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>2bitencryption</author><text>Async&#x2F;await pattern always confuses me, someone please let me know if I get this right:<p>First, async&#x2F;await does NOT mean &quot;threading&quot; or &quot;multiprocessing&quot; or &quot;concurrency&quot;. It simply means &quot;using a state machine to alternate between tasks, which may or may not be concurrent.&quot; Right?<p>Further, in Javascript, futures and async are utilized heavily because we so frequently need to wait for IO events (i.e.: network events) to complete, and we don&#x27;t want to block execution of the entire page just to wait for a IO to complete. So the JS engine allows you to fire off these network events, do something else in the meantime, and then execute the &quot;done&quot; behavior when the IO is complete (and even in this case, we might not be concurrent, because ).<p>That makes sense to me.<p>But say I have written something in Rust that makes use of async&#x2F;await. And say there is absolutely no IO or multithreading. Say I have some awaitable function called &quot;compute_pi_digits()&quot; that can take arbitrarily long to complete but does not do IO, it&#x27;s purely computational. Is there any benefit to making this function awaitable? Unless I actually spawn it in a different thread, the awaitable version of this function will behave identically to if it were NOT awaitable, correct?<p>And one last idea: the async&#x2F;await pattern is becoming so popular across vastly different languages because it allows us to abstract over concepts like concurrency, futures, promises, etc. It&#x27;s a bit of a &quot;one size fits all&quot; regardless of whether you&#x27;re spinning up a thread, polling for a network event, setting up a callback for a future, etc?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ben0x539</author><text>I think the JS world might be particularly excited about async&#x2F;await because other people just escape to threads when they don&#x27;t want to block the whole thing on IO.<p>Both in JS or Rust, you don&#x27;t gain anything just by declaring your thing to be async, or awaitable. Your function needs to be built around some kind of &quot;primitive&quot; that explicitly supports the &quot;do something else in the meantime&quot; mechanism. Using &quot;await&quot; on that thing lets your function piggyback on its support, but all your explicit, normal code is synchronously blocking as usual.<p>In Rust, I think it&#x27;s a fairly established pattern to turn blocking code, where the blocking part is not some IO action that has explicit support for the futures mechanism, into a asynchronous, awaitable function by punting the work to a threadpool. That makes sense for CPU-bound work as well as IO done by libraries that don&#x27;t support futures or things like disk IO where the OS might not actually have decent support for doing it in a non-blocking fashion.<p>I&#x27;m not sure if it&#x27;s the canonical mechanism, but this crate seems to implement what I&#x27;m thinking of: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.rs&#x2F;futures-cpupool&#x2F;0.1.8&#x2F;futures_cpupool&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.rs&#x2F;futures-cpupool&#x2F;0.1.8&#x2F;futures_cpupool&#x2F;</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Inside Rust's Async Transform</title><url>https://blag.nemo157.com/2018/12/09/inside-rusts-async-transform.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>2bitencryption</author><text>Async&#x2F;await pattern always confuses me, someone please let me know if I get this right:<p>First, async&#x2F;await does NOT mean &quot;threading&quot; or &quot;multiprocessing&quot; or &quot;concurrency&quot;. It simply means &quot;using a state machine to alternate between tasks, which may or may not be concurrent.&quot; Right?<p>Further, in Javascript, futures and async are utilized heavily because we so frequently need to wait for IO events (i.e.: network events) to complete, and we don&#x27;t want to block execution of the entire page just to wait for a IO to complete. So the JS engine allows you to fire off these network events, do something else in the meantime, and then execute the &quot;done&quot; behavior when the IO is complete (and even in this case, we might not be concurrent, because ).<p>That makes sense to me.<p>But say I have written something in Rust that makes use of async&#x2F;await. And say there is absolutely no IO or multithreading. Say I have some awaitable function called &quot;compute_pi_digits()&quot; that can take arbitrarily long to complete but does not do IO, it&#x27;s purely computational. Is there any benefit to making this function awaitable? Unless I actually spawn it in a different thread, the awaitable version of this function will behave identically to if it were NOT awaitable, correct?<p>And one last idea: the async&#x2F;await pattern is becoming so popular across vastly different languages because it allows us to abstract over concepts like concurrency, futures, promises, etc. It&#x27;s a bit of a &quot;one size fits all&quot; regardless of whether you&#x27;re spinning up a thread, polling for a network event, setting up a callback for a future, etc?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kaeso</author><text>&gt; Is there any benefit to making this [compute_pi_digits()] function awaitable?<p>If you introduce suspension points in that (e.g. every 100 computed digits), then you can co-schedule other tasks (e.g. a similar `compute_phi_digits`) or handle graceful cancellation (e.g. if a deadline is exceeded, or its parent task aborted in the meanwhile).</text></comment> |
17,999,496 | 17,998,750 | 1 | 2 | 17,996,917 | train | <story><title>Apple didn't delete that guy's movies – what really happened</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/no-apple-didnt-delete-that-guys-movies-heres-what-really-happened/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nothrabannosir</author><text>Apple has taken full responsibility for this by acting as the seller of a product. If I sell you a washing machine and it breaks for whatever reason under statutory warranty, I am responsible. No hiding behind “yeah but the producer wants to make more money off you so it’s not really my fault.”<p>You take responsibility for what you sell in B2C. If you’re not happy, take it up with your suppliers. Or the law. Or Santa Claus for all I care.<p>This is a vital part of our market rules. Otherwise people would never stop pointing fingers.<p>(I want to add: it’s also true morally. Even if this is not strictly legally their responsibility, moral responsibility is assumed all the same. This is why we blame apple; they can’t have their cake and eat it too. There was this cartoon of a villain who copied the power of every hero he met. When he met Superman it all seemed lost; surely noone could defeat him now? In the world’s hour of truth, the Batman approaches with kryptonite, and he buckles. “He could not copy our strengths without copying our weaknesses.” So it is with Apple and Hollywood.)</text></item><item><author>BurritoAlPastor</author><text>It&#x27;s not something an uninformed person would reasonably expect, but neither is it Apple&#x27;s fault that corporate copyright holders insist on Byzantine region-locking (to protect possible per-region licensee differences, maybe?)<p>If the fellow owns any movies on blu-ray or DVD and buys a new player, he&#x27;ll be delighted to discover that those are also hosed.</text></item><item><author>MatthewWilkes</author><text>While it is interesting to read more of the root cause, the tone of this article is surprisingly pro-Apple to my ears. No, they didn&#x27;t delete his movies, but they did introduce a technical limitation to prevent him from accessing content that they told him he was buying because of details of media licencing.<p>This isn&#x27;t something a reasonable member of the public would expect, and the UX and customer service paths he experienced did not help him understand or try to make him whole, they dismissed his concerns.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dperfect</author><text>Thank you for pointing this out. I wish more people understood this point. It happens to be the same reason that Amazon can&#x27;t just say &quot;sorry, we don&#x27;t take any responsibility for the suppliers of solar eclipse glasses that we sell on our website.&quot; As a reseller, you have to take responsibility for the products you sell. Here&#x27;s another example:<p>Let&#x27;s say supplier A produces a part used by manufacturer B, who produces a final product sold to consumers through retailer C. If A was negligent and produced a defective part that causes harm&#x2F;malfunction in the final product, it would be complete chaos to drag all of those parties into court in a single case (it may not even be obvious to retailer C or the customer that the product&#x27;s failure is related to A&#x27;s part).<p>To sort things out legally (assuming the problem makes it to the court system), the customer fights their case against C. C may or may not understand why the product they sell is defective, but if they believe it to be B&#x27;s fault, they can file a separate case against B. And B can then file a case against A.<p>In the end, the legal system can find the party who is ultimately responsible and hold them accountable, but it doesn&#x27;t work for B or C to say &quot;sorry, this isn&#x27;t our fault because we&#x27;re just selling something that includes A&#x27;s defective part&quot;.<p>Leadership is (or should be) similar: if an employee screws up, it&#x27;s still the CEO&#x27;s problem and responsibility. Internally, that CEO can hold a manager accountable, and that manager can hold the employee accountable, but that responsibility doesn&#x27;t end just because it&#x27;s assumed by a higher level.</text></comment> | <story><title>Apple didn't delete that guy's movies – what really happened</title><url>https://www.cnet.com/news/no-apple-didnt-delete-that-guys-movies-heres-what-really-happened/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nothrabannosir</author><text>Apple has taken full responsibility for this by acting as the seller of a product. If I sell you a washing machine and it breaks for whatever reason under statutory warranty, I am responsible. No hiding behind “yeah but the producer wants to make more money off you so it’s not really my fault.”<p>You take responsibility for what you sell in B2C. If you’re not happy, take it up with your suppliers. Or the law. Or Santa Claus for all I care.<p>This is a vital part of our market rules. Otherwise people would never stop pointing fingers.<p>(I want to add: it’s also true morally. Even if this is not strictly legally their responsibility, moral responsibility is assumed all the same. This is why we blame apple; they can’t have their cake and eat it too. There was this cartoon of a villain who copied the power of every hero he met. When he met Superman it all seemed lost; surely noone could defeat him now? In the world’s hour of truth, the Batman approaches with kryptonite, and he buckles. “He could not copy our strengths without copying our weaknesses.” So it is with Apple and Hollywood.)</text></item><item><author>BurritoAlPastor</author><text>It&#x27;s not something an uninformed person would reasonably expect, but neither is it Apple&#x27;s fault that corporate copyright holders insist on Byzantine region-locking (to protect possible per-region licensee differences, maybe?)<p>If the fellow owns any movies on blu-ray or DVD and buys a new player, he&#x27;ll be delighted to discover that those are also hosed.</text></item><item><author>MatthewWilkes</author><text>While it is interesting to read more of the root cause, the tone of this article is surprisingly pro-Apple to my ears. No, they didn&#x27;t delete his movies, but they did introduce a technical limitation to prevent him from accessing content that they told him he was buying because of details of media licencing.<p>This isn&#x27;t something a reasonable member of the public would expect, and the UX and customer service paths he experienced did not help him understand or try to make him whole, they dismissed his concerns.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neom</author><text>By that logic, if I buy a DVD at the checkout of Marks &amp; Spencer on my summer holidays before returning to the states, I get to the US to find out it won&#x27;t work in the DVD player here, should I be annoyed at Marks &amp; Spencer for not posting a sign that explains media regions?</text></comment> |
22,689,458 | 22,689,440 | 1 | 2 | 22,689,263 | train | <story><title>Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/billionaires-want-people-back-to-work-workers-aren-t-so-sure</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cushychicken</author><text>What if, at the tail end of all this, a bunch of people find that they&#x27;ve tried remote work and decided: &quot;Hey - this fucking <i>rules!</i>&quot; In part because they&#x27;ve realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting.<p>Maybe - <i>just maybe</i> - this could be the unplug that helps people prioritize the things that they enjoy over their work.<p>I recognize that&#x27;s a viewpoint that represents immense privilege. I&#x27;m in a job where I&#x27;m capable of working remotely. But it&#x27;d be a neat thing for people like me to be able to leverage.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JshWright</author><text>I think it&#x27;s likely the exact opposite will happen. People are being thrown into seriously sub-optimal remote working experiences, and their productivity is likely to suffer for it. This will result in companies being less likely to consider remote working a viable path.</text></comment> | <story><title>Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/billionaires-want-people-back-to-work-workers-aren-t-so-sure</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cushychicken</author><text>What if, at the tail end of all this, a bunch of people find that they&#x27;ve tried remote work and decided: &quot;Hey - this fucking <i>rules!</i>&quot; In part because they&#x27;ve realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting.<p>Maybe - <i>just maybe</i> - this could be the unplug that helps people prioritize the things that they enjoy over their work.<p>I recognize that&#x27;s a viewpoint that represents immense privilege. I&#x27;m in a job where I&#x27;m capable of working remotely. But it&#x27;d be a neat thing for people like me to be able to leverage.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>holler</author><text>It&#x27;s funny, I&#x27;ve been working remotely for the past 4 years and now more than ever, I miss going to an office and being around more people. Working remote has some amazing benefits, and I&#x27;ve certainly taken advantage of them, but eventually I&#x27;ve realized that decreased social interaction is something to consider. That said, I&#x27;ll probably keep working remote.</text></comment> |
2,431,022 | 2,430,967 | 1 | 2 | 2,430,532 | train | <story><title>How to build toddler app UIs.</title><url>http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/04/toddler-app-user-interface-guidelines.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Stormbringer</author><text>I would add the additional thing that if you have a big green button and a big red button, the toddler is not going to have the same good/bad stop/go associations with those colours. A big red 'exit the app and go spend money' button is going to get pushed just as much as the 'go back to the game green button'.<p>From the article:<p><i>"Finally, here are some gripes with iOS:<p>•Home button needs an off switch. I need some way to disable the home button or make it harder to access during app play, e.g. a triple click or some other morse code sequence.<p>•Need a way to hide videos. Eli knows how to get to the videos. He can find the icon no matter where I put it. I can disable videos through restrictions, but that doesn't really solve the problem. I would really like to be able to hide this icon like you can do for system icons on Windows. Another option would be to put the restriction on the icon itself and force me to enter the password when clicking on it. Come to think of it, this would work for the home button too.
"</i><p>I very much disagree with the first point. It makes your app a 'trap' that even an adult might not be able to figure out how to exit from. This is a stunningly, spectacularly bad idea and violates the whole "the user is in control" illusion. If the easiest way to exit your app is to reboot the machine ... then your app blows, <i>and you suck</i>.<p>If the kid is pressing the home button a lot, and this annoys you, then you have to think about your goals. Toddlers like to bounce from one thing to another a lot, and they <i>love</i> to be in control (because they have so little control of everything else in their lives).<p>We think of toddlers having short attention spans, but sometimes the converse is true, toddlers can also have <i>amazingly</i> long attention spans - the classic example being the kid who sits there and bangs a pot with a wooden spoon for endless hours.<p>If the toddler is exiting too often from the app, maybe the problem is not with the home button, maybe your app is just not engaging enough.<p>I saw (for instance) one toddler who could spend hours making the angry birds fly the wrong way. When they do they make indignant squawks, and he loved that. <i>Without fail</i> any adult who watched him doing that would quickly become bored and try to show him how to 'do it right'.<p>---<p>With respect to the videos, I'm not sure what the problem is, is it bandwidth? Is it easy access to age inappropriate content?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cfinke</author><text>&#62; I saw (for instance) one toddler who could spend hours making the angry birds fly the wrong way.<p>My two-year-old does the same thing. He loves the sounds the birds make, but he gets very upset when the pigs "fall down," so he'll throw the all of the birds the wrong way, go back to the main screen, choose the next level (that I've already unlocked), and fling all of those birds the wrong way too.<p>Rovio should come out with a toddler-focused game that just lets the user fling an unlimited number of birds into random targets. I'd buy it.</text></comment> | <story><title>How to build toddler app UIs.</title><url>http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/04/toddler-app-user-interface-guidelines.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Stormbringer</author><text>I would add the additional thing that if you have a big green button and a big red button, the toddler is not going to have the same good/bad stop/go associations with those colours. A big red 'exit the app and go spend money' button is going to get pushed just as much as the 'go back to the game green button'.<p>From the article:<p><i>"Finally, here are some gripes with iOS:<p>•Home button needs an off switch. I need some way to disable the home button or make it harder to access during app play, e.g. a triple click or some other morse code sequence.<p>•Need a way to hide videos. Eli knows how to get to the videos. He can find the icon no matter where I put it. I can disable videos through restrictions, but that doesn't really solve the problem. I would really like to be able to hide this icon like you can do for system icons on Windows. Another option would be to put the restriction on the icon itself and force me to enter the password when clicking on it. Come to think of it, this would work for the home button too.
"</i><p>I very much disagree with the first point. It makes your app a 'trap' that even an adult might not be able to figure out how to exit from. This is a stunningly, spectacularly bad idea and violates the whole "the user is in control" illusion. If the easiest way to exit your app is to reboot the machine ... then your app blows, <i>and you suck</i>.<p>If the kid is pressing the home button a lot, and this annoys you, then you have to think about your goals. Toddlers like to bounce from one thing to another a lot, and they <i>love</i> to be in control (because they have so little control of everything else in their lives).<p>We think of toddlers having short attention spans, but sometimes the converse is true, toddlers can also have <i>amazingly</i> long attention spans - the classic example being the kid who sits there and bangs a pot with a wooden spoon for endless hours.<p>If the toddler is exiting too often from the app, maybe the problem is not with the home button, maybe your app is just not engaging enough.<p>I saw (for instance) one toddler who could spend hours making the angry birds fly the wrong way. When they do they make indignant squawks, and he loved that. <i>Without fail</i> any adult who watched him doing that would quickly become bored and try to show him how to 'do it right'.<p>---<p>With respect to the videos, I'm not sure what the problem is, is it bandwidth? Is it easy access to age inappropriate content?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>epi0Bauqu</author><text>I wasn't talking about a dev-switch, but a system wide switch for the home button. The issue is not messing with the toddler attention span, but the slow-loading apps. With the toddler in control, they often won't wait until the app loads or they'll hit the home button if it becomes shortly unresponsive, and then they'll go right back into the same app. Yes, this is an app problem that should be solved, but in absence of those developers solving it, I would like to bypass them with my own fix.<p>Wrt to videos, left to own devices, the toddler will often just watch videos, and I'd rather them interact with the apps when it is not video time. When the icon is not there/found, that works fine.</text></comment> |
23,525,808 | 23,525,777 | 1 | 3 | 23,525,199 | train | <story><title>Facebook disqualifies leaders of Deepfake Detection Challenge for rule breach</title><url>https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/14/facebook-and-kaggle-face-backlash-after-disqualifying-apparent-deepfake-detection-challenge-winner/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>vivekkalyan</author><text>The rules seem pretty clear that consent is required from any persons appearing in any external datasets that are required. The winners scraped data from Youtube videos so I am not not sure the issue is.<p>The more worrying takeaway is that the winners scraped videos from people who clearly had no intention of their videos being used for a deepfake detection algorithm. Yet they did not think of the ethical considerations of using that data (did everyone in the video even have a say in the video being uploaded?). I think Kaggle disqualifying the team is the right move (even if it&#x27;s a painful one for the winners).</text></comment> | <story><title>Facebook disqualifies leaders of Deepfake Detection Challenge for rule breach</title><url>https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/14/facebook-and-kaggle-face-backlash-after-disqualifying-apparent-deepfake-detection-challenge-winner/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Traster</author><text>I think the issue here is that Kaggle&#x27;s statement that the top teams broke the rules is just very opaque. They stated they broke the rules on external data. The article then goes on to talk about what data the teams used and what licenses it has, and what data the teams were asked to provide. But it really is almost impossible to know what the concerns of FB&#x2F;Kaggle were without them specifically stating them. Clearly whatever the issue was it didn&#x27;t effect every team - so it may be there were details of the licenses that the disqualified teams used that weren&#x27;t good enough. As I say though, it&#x27;s very difficult to say and it&#x27;s kind of hard to think of a reason Facebook would arbitrarily disqualify teams for no good reason. It&#x27;s perfectly possible FB were concerned about image rights or something else, but people seem to be perfectly happy just assuming some grand conspiracy.</text></comment> |
15,605,775 | 15,605,699 | 1 | 2 | 15,603,913 | train | <story><title>Angular 5.0.0</title><url>https://blog.angular.io/version-5-0-0-of-angular-now-available-37e414935ced</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eric_b</author><text>Angular 2 will not help your team deliver valuable web experiences to customers any more quickly or reliably than Angular 1. Probably almost certainly the opposite.<p>I&#x27;d argue most teams, if they&#x27;re willing to go all-in on an SPA framework (which for most apps is a waste of time and money imo) would be better off with React + TSX.<p>Edit: Vue is probably closer to the &quot;Angular way&quot; with databinding, but component to component communication really needs something additional like Vuex. So, really, just use React&#x2F;Redux and you&#x27;ll get a bigger community with more real-world apps being built with the tooling.</text></item><item><author>Yabood</author><text>This rapid pace of major releases is a little scary. We&#x27;re stuck running Angular 1.x because there&#x27;s no reasonable upgrade path for us. We&#x27;re a .NET shop and really like Angular, but after the 2.x cluster fuck, we&#x27;re now thinking about going with something else entirely.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>apatheticonion</author><text>I disagree. In my experience, developing a REST API and SPA with Angular2+ has been the quickest development cycle I&#x27;ve experienced.<p>Not only is it very pleasant to work in, but the end product for the user is high quality.<p>Vue is great, but it&#x27;s lack of proper component support makes it a bit annoying to work with.<p>I have just migrated an app that was on Angular 2 RC4 to Angular 5 with little to no migrational woes.<p>The transition from Angular1 - Angular2 sucks, but ng2 and beyond is trivial.</text></comment> | <story><title>Angular 5.0.0</title><url>https://blog.angular.io/version-5-0-0-of-angular-now-available-37e414935ced</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>eric_b</author><text>Angular 2 will not help your team deliver valuable web experiences to customers any more quickly or reliably than Angular 1. Probably almost certainly the opposite.<p>I&#x27;d argue most teams, if they&#x27;re willing to go all-in on an SPA framework (which for most apps is a waste of time and money imo) would be better off with React + TSX.<p>Edit: Vue is probably closer to the &quot;Angular way&quot; with databinding, but component to component communication really needs something additional like Vuex. So, really, just use React&#x2F;Redux and you&#x27;ll get a bigger community with more real-world apps being built with the tooling.</text></item><item><author>Yabood</author><text>This rapid pace of major releases is a little scary. We&#x27;re stuck running Angular 1.x because there&#x27;s no reasonable upgrade path for us. We&#x27;re a .NET shop and really like Angular, but after the 2.x cluster fuck, we&#x27;re now thinking about going with something else entirely.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dbbk</author><text>I&#x27;d consider Ember to also be a top choice (if not the top choice) for teams who want to just go all-in on a framework and reap the productivity benefits. From all the frameworks I&#x27;ve tried, it&#x27;s the one that&#x27;s allowed me to focus the most amount of my time on actual product code, not plumbing.</text></comment> |
23,240,856 | 23,239,449 | 1 | 3 | 23,237,559 | train | <story><title>Blogging Is Not Dead</title><url>https://www.garron.blog/en/blog/blogging.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>foob</author><text>If you want to see more high quality blog posts, then I highly recommend taking actions to help promote and encourage them. Sign up for a mailing list or subscribe to an RSS feed when you find a blog that consistently produces quality material. Post new or old content on Hacker News, Reddit, Lobsters, Twitter, and other communities where you think they would be a good fit. Upvote and retweet quality content that you run across, and flag stuff that&#x27;s blatantly marketing spam. Leave comments on the blog or reach out to the author over email. Even as a single individual, these sort of actions have a much bigger impact than you might expect.<p>I used to blog extensively, and I&#x27;ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. The content I would write was loosely for marketing purposes, but I put a lot of effort into generating high quality content that I would genuinely enjoy reading myself. An article that I spent 50+ hours on and felt very proud of might have a 30% chance of reaching the front page of Hacker News. A fluffy post with a decent title that I spent only an hour or two on would still have a 10-15% chance of front paging. The way the math works out, it&#x27;s simply much lower ROI to generate quality content. It&#x27;s also a bit heartbreaking to invest a lot of time making something for other people to enjoy only for nobody to ever see it.<p>The second chance queue on Hacker News is a major step in the right direction, and I&#x27;m grateful for all the times where my posts were given another chance. A lot of great content still slips through the cracks however, and relatively small actions by community members would go a long way towards helping incentives align towards generating quality content.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>netcan</author><text>About 15 years ago I was following some small podcast on my new ipod nano. Nothing too grandiose. It was about beekeeping, worm farming... Probably dozens of listeners, hundreds at most<p>Anyway, the podcaster went dark for a week and then posted something about hiatus. I sent him a &quot;<i>thanks for the content, I&#x27;ll be here when you get back</i>&quot; type message.<p>A week or two later an episode went online. He explained that he has periodic depression issues, read out my message and explained how it made him feel better. He&#x27;d been dwelling on &quot;<i>everyone knows and thinks I&#x27;m an idiot</i>&quot; thoughts that come with the territory. Just a friendly thanks (to someone providing me a show for free) meant something to him in that moment.<p>Since then I try make a point of little things like that, especially to little guys.<p>Let them know you enjoy a blog, if you do. Thank them. Be friendly. We all need encouragement, and I now feel that we also owe it.<p>And I definitely agree on the promotion too.</text></comment> | <story><title>Blogging Is Not Dead</title><url>https://www.garron.blog/en/blog/blogging.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>foob</author><text>If you want to see more high quality blog posts, then I highly recommend taking actions to help promote and encourage them. Sign up for a mailing list or subscribe to an RSS feed when you find a blog that consistently produces quality material. Post new or old content on Hacker News, Reddit, Lobsters, Twitter, and other communities where you think they would be a good fit. Upvote and retweet quality content that you run across, and flag stuff that&#x27;s blatantly marketing spam. Leave comments on the blog or reach out to the author over email. Even as a single individual, these sort of actions have a much bigger impact than you might expect.<p>I used to blog extensively, and I&#x27;ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. The content I would write was loosely for marketing purposes, but I put a lot of effort into generating high quality content that I would genuinely enjoy reading myself. An article that I spent 50+ hours on and felt very proud of might have a 30% chance of reaching the front page of Hacker News. A fluffy post with a decent title that I spent only an hour or two on would still have a 10-15% chance of front paging. The way the math works out, it&#x27;s simply much lower ROI to generate quality content. It&#x27;s also a bit heartbreaking to invest a lot of time making something for other people to enjoy only for nobody to ever see it.<p>The second chance queue on Hacker News is a major step in the right direction, and I&#x27;m grateful for all the times where my posts were given another chance. A lot of great content still slips through the cracks however, and relatively small actions by community members would go a long way towards helping incentives align towards generating quality content.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thomasahle</author><text>Interesting, I didn&#x27;t know about the second chance queue. This appears to be the best source of information: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11662380" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11662380</a><p>Personally I was sad when my tiny python chess engine Sunfish [1] didn&#x27;t make it past the two-three upvotes stage. However about half a year later somebody else submitted it and it got a lot of traction.<p>I wonder how accepted it is to resubmit the same, or a version of, your project or blog post, to try your luck again.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;thomasahle&#x2F;sunfish" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;thomasahle&#x2F;sunfish</a></text></comment> |
28,101,443 | 28,099,509 | 1 | 3 | 28,098,658 | train | <story><title>NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars</title><url>https://www.theblaze.com/news/nasa-is-looking-for-people-who-want-to-spend-a-year-simulating-a-mission-on-mars</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dylan604</author><text>Why does it need to be windowless? You could have windows looking out at arid landscapes of Mars. You&#x27;d see sunsets, sunrises, highnoon, etc. You could even see the local &quot;weather&quot;.</text></item><item><author>hereforphone</author><text>Not being able to go to your favorite cafe &#x2F; restaurant as frequently != being confined in a windowless structure</text></item><item><author>napier</author><text>NASA missed an opportunity not conducting the study over the last 15 months. They could have recruited hundreds of millions of study participants with no additional costs or fundamental behavior alterations required.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tsimionescu</author><text>Because there is no possibility of sending windows to Mars for a hypothetical first base there. It would be far too expensive, and given the already extreme difficulty of such a mission, it would be a huge luxury.</text></comment> | <story><title>NASA is looking for people who want to spend a year simulating a mission on Mars</title><url>https://www.theblaze.com/news/nasa-is-looking-for-people-who-want-to-spend-a-year-simulating-a-mission-on-mars</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dylan604</author><text>Why does it need to be windowless? You could have windows looking out at arid landscapes of Mars. You&#x27;d see sunsets, sunrises, highnoon, etc. You could even see the local &quot;weather&quot;.</text></item><item><author>hereforphone</author><text>Not being able to go to your favorite cafe &#x2F; restaurant as frequently != being confined in a windowless structure</text></item><item><author>napier</author><text>NASA missed an opportunity not conducting the study over the last 15 months. They could have recruited hundreds of millions of study participants with no additional costs or fundamental behavior alterations required.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>comrh</author><text>In Kim Stanley Robinson&#x27;s Red Mars the first settlements on Mars are underground and windowless to protect from radiation iirc.</text></comment> |
2,144,352 | 2,144,260 | 1 | 2 | 2,143,977 | train | <story><title>Ask HN: Review RentPost.com</title><url>http://rentpost.com</url><text>After our team has spent the last 2 years in development, working countless hours, we have been able to FINALLY push out our service to the public! We welcome your feedback and thoughts. Cheers.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanBlake</author><text>I own with my father a 30 unit building. With that, let me just address the tagline: "Connect with tenants effortlessly, automate rent with online rent collection, organize work orders, and much more!"<p>-<p>Connect with tenants effortlessly - Not a good thing, Usually leads to excess work orders, more "asks" and petty squabbles about this and that.<p>-<p>Automate rent with online rent collection - Not sure how this is going to work. We have a option for people to pay rent via CC, but most people opt to do it in cash/check. Since only a fraction would use this, I would have to add to my work load to manually enter their transactions in here to have data integrity.<p>-<p>organize work orders- Definitely dont want this. If they need something done, they just go the manager and ask. Taking away that element will just create unneeded work orders. We already have a internal system for tracking needed work. I think the last thing we would want is to make it easier for the tenant to complain about things.<p>-<p>...tasks, contacts and more!
I guess this is cool, but we never really have a need for this. You already have to file their rental application and other work anyways, so its not like you wont have this.<p>-<p>I guess I just dont see the appeal. Its cool to have a nice online interface for this, but I know we wouldnt use it and even my friend who runs a 400 unit complex hates moving stuff to tech. Unfortunately, they always add more work then they solve. The last thing ANY land lord needs, is /MORE/ paper trail :)<p>-<p>If you get anything from this, get this- I am a technical, HN user that owns a apartment building. I am (what you would assume) your absolute ideal customer.<p>And with that, I wouldnt use your product without significant changes.<p>~fin</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryanwaggoner</author><text>I'm not trying to attack you personally, but your response is typical of the real estate industry, and exactly why there's a hole in the market worth billions. For whatever reason, customer service is almost uniformly bad in the real estate industry. It's so bad, people don't even realize how bad it is, because they've never had anything else to choose from. For example, this kind of attitude makes me really sad:<p><i>I think the last thing we would want is to make it easier for the tenant to complain about things.</i><p>This is the same kind of disdain-for-customers attitude that leads web developers to build paid services that are really hard to cancel.<p>The marketing and branding in real estate are also a joke, but it's the customer service thing that really gets me. There's a huge opportunity here for someone to do it right.<p>Disclosure: I'm an active real estate investor with three small properties.</text></comment> | <story><title>Ask HN: Review RentPost.com</title><url>http://rentpost.com</url><text>After our team has spent the last 2 years in development, working countless hours, we have been able to FINALLY push out our service to the public! We welcome your feedback and thoughts. Cheers.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>DanBlake</author><text>I own with my father a 30 unit building. With that, let me just address the tagline: "Connect with tenants effortlessly, automate rent with online rent collection, organize work orders, and much more!"<p>-<p>Connect with tenants effortlessly - Not a good thing, Usually leads to excess work orders, more "asks" and petty squabbles about this and that.<p>-<p>Automate rent with online rent collection - Not sure how this is going to work. We have a option for people to pay rent via CC, but most people opt to do it in cash/check. Since only a fraction would use this, I would have to add to my work load to manually enter their transactions in here to have data integrity.<p>-<p>organize work orders- Definitely dont want this. If they need something done, they just go the manager and ask. Taking away that element will just create unneeded work orders. We already have a internal system for tracking needed work. I think the last thing we would want is to make it easier for the tenant to complain about things.<p>-<p>...tasks, contacts and more!
I guess this is cool, but we never really have a need for this. You already have to file their rental application and other work anyways, so its not like you wont have this.<p>-<p>I guess I just dont see the appeal. Its cool to have a nice online interface for this, but I know we wouldnt use it and even my friend who runs a 400 unit complex hates moving stuff to tech. Unfortunately, they always add more work then they solve. The last thing ANY land lord needs, is /MORE/ paper trail :)<p>-<p>If you get anything from this, get this- I am a technical, HN user that owns a apartment building. I am (what you would assume) your absolute ideal customer.<p>And with that, I wouldnt use your product without significant changes.<p>~fin</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacquesm</author><text>That's as good an advertisement for 'iterate' early and often as we'll see around here. Two years of development and that's the first response you give, I guess either you're not the target market or maybe they should have connected with actual users a bit earlier.<p>So this makes me wonder, was this product developed on the 'they will come' methodology or was there actual end-user involvement and piloting with early adopters during the development phase?<p>If the latter then you're simply not the target market.<p>Where I live if you have a property that is 'to let' you contract out the handling of all the details to an agency that manages a large number of properties and you just pocket the cash every month.</text></comment> |
38,767,867 | 38,766,869 | 1 | 2 | 38,756,319 | train | <story><title>Interview about Austral, a systems programming language with linear types</title><url>https://blog.lambdaclass.com/austral/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dgreensp</author><text>As someone working on a language myself, I found this to be very high-quality material! It aligns with a lot of my thinking, and it’s educational.<p>A random part of interest: I followed the link about how linear types and exceptions don’t mix: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;borretti.me&#x2F;article&#x2F;linear-types-exceptions" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;borretti.me&#x2F;article&#x2F;linear-types-exceptions</a> In it, the author explains how linear types always need to be explicitly destroyed, and if you end up in a “catch” block, you can’t easily go back and destroy things that are now out of scope, which control flow got interrupted while doing things with. “Why not just destroy things when they go out of scope?” I thought. The author addresses this, saying that types that you have to “consume” “at most once” are called affine types, and the compiler can clean them up for you, and it solves the problem with exceptions. Rust has affine types, and you don’t have to explicitly “destruct” every string&#x2F;object&#x2F;resource using the appropriate destructor for that type, manually, as you do with linear types (of course, the compiler will make sure you do it, but you have to do it).<p>So why does Austral use linear types, not affine types? The reasons given do not really resonate with me (but I’m not a systems programmer); it’s that the compiler would have to insert hidden function calls, and secondarily, for temporary&#x2F;intermediate values, the order of invocation might not be obvious; plus, maybe the programmer not doing something with a value is a mistake. I’m really glad the reasons are written out, however.<p>In other areas I feel very aligned with the author, such as on the value of required type annotations and local inference rather than global inference, and I’ve saved the link to refer back to the way the opinion is stated.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_dain_</author><text><i>&gt;So why does Austral use linear types, not affine types?</i><p>Affine types give a <i>safety</i> guarantee: you can&#x27;t use it more than once. The bad thing (double free, use after free) does not happen.<p>Linear types give that same safety guarantee, plus a <i>liveness</i> guarantee: you <i>must</i> use it, possibly in some nontrivial way.<p>A function that takes an affine value as an argument is enforcing a contract about the <i>past</i> behaviour of the caller, leading up to the call: having the affine value is proof that certain other functions were called in the right way to produce it. But returning an affine value gives you weaker guarantees about <i>future</i> behaviour, because you can use it zero times. At most you know that it will get Dropped. But maybe you want to enforce more interesting things than the Drop trait can express. Returning a linear value lets you do this: maybe the linear Foo you return can only be disposed of in conjunction with a linear Bar, like<p><pre><code> fn consume(x: Foo, y: Bar) -&gt; Baz
</code></pre>
And perhaps now Baz itself is linear, which has to be consumed in some other way ... at any rate, returning a linear value is proof that in the <i>future</i>, the program will advance through a particular state machine of function calls, where the states and transitions are defined by the available signatures. If Foo is linear but there&#x27;s no simple function like<p><pre><code> fn drop(x: Foo) -&gt; Unit
</code></pre>
then buckle in, the compiler says you&#x27;re not getting off the ride until it&#x27;s over.</text></comment> | <story><title>Interview about Austral, a systems programming language with linear types</title><url>https://blog.lambdaclass.com/austral/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dgreensp</author><text>As someone working on a language myself, I found this to be very high-quality material! It aligns with a lot of my thinking, and it’s educational.<p>A random part of interest: I followed the link about how linear types and exceptions don’t mix: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;borretti.me&#x2F;article&#x2F;linear-types-exceptions" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;borretti.me&#x2F;article&#x2F;linear-types-exceptions</a> In it, the author explains how linear types always need to be explicitly destroyed, and if you end up in a “catch” block, you can’t easily go back and destroy things that are now out of scope, which control flow got interrupted while doing things with. “Why not just destroy things when they go out of scope?” I thought. The author addresses this, saying that types that you have to “consume” “at most once” are called affine types, and the compiler can clean them up for you, and it solves the problem with exceptions. Rust has affine types, and you don’t have to explicitly “destruct” every string&#x2F;object&#x2F;resource using the appropriate destructor for that type, manually, as you do with linear types (of course, the compiler will make sure you do it, but you have to do it).<p>So why does Austral use linear types, not affine types? The reasons given do not really resonate with me (but I’m not a systems programmer); it’s that the compiler would have to insert hidden function calls, and secondarily, for temporary&#x2F;intermediate values, the order of invocation might not be obvious; plus, maybe the programmer not doing something with a value is a mistake. I’m really glad the reasons are written out, however.<p>In other areas I feel very aligned with the author, such as on the value of required type annotations and local inference rather than global inference, and I’ve saved the link to refer back to the way the opinion is stated.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JonChesterfield</author><text>Linear types are more powerful than affine in terms of implementing code that cannot go wrong as enforced by the type system. State machines reified in application code.<p>Affine is fine if there&#x27;s a catch all operation available for when the value drops out of scope which the compiler inserts. You can call deallocate or similar when an exception comes through the call stack.<p>If the final operation is some function that returns something significant, takes extra arguments, interacts with the rest of the program in some sort of must-happen sense, then calling a destructor implicitly doesn&#x27;t cover it.<p>There&#x27;s some interesting ideas around associating handlers with functions to deal with exceptions passing through but I think I&#x27;ve only seen that in one language. The simple&#x2F;easy approach is to accept that exceptions and linear types are inconsistent.</text></comment> |
31,333,216 | 31,332,005 | 1 | 2 | 31,329,269 | train | <story><title>Effective altruism and the current funding situation</title><url>https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cfdnJ3sDbCSkShiSZ/ea-and-the-current-funding-situation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>I really hope this serves as an inflection point for the Effective Altruism crowd to pivot away from some of the weirder things they embraced in the past.<p>I love the idea of Effective Altruism and what they&#x27;re trying to accomplish, but in practice it frequently turns into funding for intellectuals to sit around and pontificate about AI risk and other things, as opposed to actually going out into the world and doing altruistic acts.<p>Some of their previous grants are downright laughable, like spending $30K to distribute copies of rationalist Harry Potter fanfiction (<i>Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality</i>) despite the fact that it&#x27;s freely available online. (Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&#x2F;posts&#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&#x2F;long-term-future-fund-april-2019-grant-decisions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&#x2F;posts&#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&#x2F;...</a> Ctrl+F &quot;Harry Potter&quot;)<p>The EA movement has become a bit of a joke in many circles after making too many moves like this, so hopefully this serves as a wake-up call for them to start getting more practical.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kvee</author><text>For whatever it&#x27;s worth, HPMOR introduced me to Effective Altruism and lesswrong, etc.<p>Though I found it online and not from the $30K distributed, I have since as a result of being introduced to Effective Altruism there donated much more than $30K to highly effective charities and caused hundreds of other people to get into donating to highly effective charities too. I also started a company inspired by the EA concepts of working on &quot;neglected problems&quot; - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;80000hours.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;problem-framework&#x2F;#definition-2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;80000hours.org&#x2F;articles&#x2F;problem-framework&#x2F;#definitio...</a><p>I might be wrong, but I suspect there&#x27;s a decent chance there was at least 1 person like me of the people in that $30k distribution.</text></comment> | <story><title>Effective altruism and the current funding situation</title><url>https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cfdnJ3sDbCSkShiSZ/ea-and-the-current-funding-situation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>I really hope this serves as an inflection point for the Effective Altruism crowd to pivot away from some of the weirder things they embraced in the past.<p>I love the idea of Effective Altruism and what they&#x27;re trying to accomplish, but in practice it frequently turns into funding for intellectuals to sit around and pontificate about AI risk and other things, as opposed to actually going out into the world and doing altruistic acts.<p>Some of their previous grants are downright laughable, like spending $30K to distribute copies of rationalist Harry Potter fanfiction (<i>Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality</i>) despite the fact that it&#x27;s freely available online. (Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&#x2F;posts&#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&#x2F;long-term-future-fund-april-2019-grant-decisions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&#x2F;posts&#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&#x2F;...</a> Ctrl+F &quot;Harry Potter&quot;)<p>The EA movement has become a bit of a joke in many circles after making too many moves like this, so hopefully this serves as a wake-up call for them to start getting more practical.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>justinpombrio</author><text>There are multiple EA groups, but I think the most common place to donate is GiveWell? Here&#x27;s what its donation page looks like:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;secure.givewell.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;secure.givewell.org&#x2F;</a><p><pre><code> Let GiveWell direct your donation
GiveWell&#x27;s Maximum Impact Fund
Support GiveWell&#x27;s top charities
Malaria Consortium&#x27;s seasonal malaria chemoprevention program
Against Malaria Foundation
Helen Keller International&#x27;s vitamin A supplementation program
SCI Foundation (Schistosomiasis Control Initiative)
Sightsavers&#x27; deworming program
New Incentives
Evidence Action&#x27;s Deworm the World Initiative
END Fund&#x27;s deworming program
GiveDirectly
</code></pre>
The recent grants by their Maximum Impact Fund are listed here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.givewell.org&#x2F;maximum-impact-fund" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.givewell.org&#x2F;maximum-impact-fund</a><p>the largest of which was $7.8 million to &quot;Sightsavers — Deworming in Nigeria and Cameroon (February 2022)&quot;<p>Please don&#x27;t let the fact that some people are concerned about AI safety detract from EA&#x27;s overarching goal of doing the most good per dollar donated.</text></comment> |
35,969,554 | 35,968,774 | 1 | 2 | 35,966,680 | train | <story><title>Show HN: A little web server in C</title><url>https://github.com/robdelacruz/lkwebserver</url><text>A little web server written in C for Linux.<p>Supports: CGI, Reverse Proxy.<p>Single threaded using I&#x2F;O multiplexing (select).</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>skulk</author><text>Cool project, but this project demonstrates the reason I&#x27;ve stopped writing things in C. The standard library has garbage string functions and it seems every project has its own version of this file:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;robdelacruz&#x2F;lkwebserver&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;lkstring.c">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;robdelacruz&#x2F;lkwebserver&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;lkstrin...</a><p>It&#x27;s fun to write this (and read others&#x27; versions) the first 3 or 4 times, but it gets old quickly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>userbinator</author><text>That&#x27;s the &quot;lazy, dumb&quot; way of doing it --- write another string library. A much better way is to design your algorithms so they need a minimum of string manipulation, which is unfortunately on the more difficult side for text-based protocols like HTTP.<p>Personally, I wish HTTP messages were closer to something like ASN.1 DER; there&#x27;s little in the way of string manipulation necessary for those, and all the lengths are prefixes instead of &quot;try to find the terminator&quot; (and don&#x27;t forget to not run past the end of the buffer...)</text></comment> | <story><title>Show HN: A little web server in C</title><url>https://github.com/robdelacruz/lkwebserver</url><text>A little web server written in C for Linux.<p>Supports: CGI, Reverse Proxy.<p>Single threaded using I&#x2F;O multiplexing (select).</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>skulk</author><text>Cool project, but this project demonstrates the reason I&#x27;ve stopped writing things in C. The standard library has garbage string functions and it seems every project has its own version of this file:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;robdelacruz&#x2F;lkwebserver&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;lkstring.c">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;robdelacruz&#x2F;lkwebserver&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;lkstrin...</a><p>It&#x27;s fun to write this (and read others&#x27; versions) the first 3 or 4 times, but it gets old quickly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xmonkee</author><text>I have the same issue, but I blame the absence of good package management. If it had that, one of the thousands of these libraries would have won out and become quasi-standard.</text></comment> |
29,659,079 | 29,659,204 | 1 | 2 | 29,658,342 | train | <story><title>Apache Log4j bug: China’s industry ministry pulls support from Alibaba Cloud</title><url>https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3160670/apache-log4j-bug-chinas-industry-ministry-pulls-support-alibaba-cloud</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>addicted</author><text>This is why for all the fear of China, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory.<p>Things look great until the leaders are doing well, but all it takes is for 1 bad set of leadership for all to fall apart.<p>And Xi Jinping has guaranteed failure by removing term limits. Term limits meant that other ambitious political leaders were willing to wait and try their luck next turn. But with no term limits multiple generations of leaders are locked out of even the possibility of becoming the party leader, which means they have become a threat to Jinping.<p>And since so many people are now a threat to him, his selection criteria for people to lead different parts of the party and government has to be based entirely on loyalty rather than competence.<p>Which almost guarantees a lot of counter productive incompetence.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kelnos</author><text>&gt; <i>This is why for all the fear of China, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory.</i><p>I really really really want this to be true, but I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s wise to discount China as a threat to worldwide autonomy just because they&#x27;re behaving like typical authoritarians, and have the weaknesses that you&#x27;d expect from that kind of government.<p>Personally I think China&#x27;s demographic issues should be more of a worry for them. The aftermath of the one-child policy, as well as all the selective abortion (under one-child, parents preferred to give birth to a boy) creating a imbalance between the number of men and women, means their population will start shrinking soon. And there will be a lot of only children supporting both of their parents when they start getting older, not to mention a glut of older folks leaving the workforce without equal replacement from the younger generations.</text></comment> | <story><title>Apache Log4j bug: China’s industry ministry pulls support from Alibaba Cloud</title><url>https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3160670/apache-log4j-bug-chinas-industry-ministry-pulls-support-alibaba-cloud</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>addicted</author><text>This is why for all the fear of China, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory.<p>Things look great until the leaders are doing well, but all it takes is for 1 bad set of leadership for all to fall apart.<p>And Xi Jinping has guaranteed failure by removing term limits. Term limits meant that other ambitious political leaders were willing to wait and try their luck next turn. But with no term limits multiple generations of leaders are locked out of even the possibility of becoming the party leader, which means they have become a threat to Jinping.<p>And since so many people are now a threat to him, his selection criteria for people to lead different parts of the party and government has to be based entirely on loyalty rather than competence.<p>Which almost guarantees a lot of counter productive incompetence.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sudosysgen</author><text>According to machine translation (both Google Translate and DeepL) of the law itself, it seems that this is not actually the case, and that the article is simply wrong. Indeed, it seems that they have a legal responsibility to notify the MIIT within two days, but a legal responsibility to notify upstream immediately (according to another commenter, they do not even have any responsibility to disclose to the government, only to Apache).<p>Perhaps this translation is incorrect, but Chinese speaking commenters below think that it is accurate, so it&#x27;s probably just the article being wrong (as usual), leading to incorrect conclusions that China is not a threat and will not succeed because they will shoot themselves in the foot etc, while reality is a lot more reasonable.</text></comment> |
41,258,559 | 41,257,639 | 1 | 2 | 41,256,222 | train | <story><title>CockroachDB license change</title><url>https://www.cockroachlabs.com/enterprise-license-update/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrewmutz</author><text>It seems that whenever an open source project is run by a VC-backed company, it sooner or later ends up like this. Increasingly it seems that &quot;open source&quot; is just the teaser to get people interested and then when investors want revenue growth, the rug gets pulled.<p>IMO, it&#x27;s not really open source if its run by a company that will eventually use its position to squeeze its users for cash.</text></item><item><author>AYBABTME</author><text>I understand the goal, and the perceived abuse of the Core edition. But the problem with the Enterprise edition is that it&#x27;s quite expensive, &quot;contact us&quot; salesy, and it feels like taking a bite of this edition is possibly getting into bed with a future Oracle&#x2F;landlord type of relationship where you end up squeezed by your database vendor.<p>The Core offering made this palatable, one could fallback to Core features if the relationship with Cockroach Labs degraded, which made it possible to entertain the Enterprise license since there&#x27;s was a way to walk back from it. But now there&#x27;s no such mitigation available. By using non-PG native features, users of the Enterprise edition are accepting to get in bed with Cockroach Labs for effectively forever (databases), a single provider that has no competition.<p>I think this may backfire, as it now seems imprudent to go all in on Cockroach Labs. They may be nice folks today, but who knows who will run the place in 5y when the next round of squeeze comes?<p>I wish them the best, they&#x27;re a great team and I always liked the project and toyed with it for years, and currently am involved with a paid Enterprise license. But this change in the dynamics is really giving me pause.<p>Getting in bed with a single vendor for an incredibly sticky tool comes with a _lot_ of risk. It took at least 17y for Amazon to get rid of its last Oracle database: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;aws.amazon.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;aws&#x2F;migration-complete-amazons-consumer-business-just-turned-off-its-final-oracle-database&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;aws.amazon.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;aws&#x2F;migration-complete-amazons-...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jaaron</author><text>&gt; IMO, it&#x27;s not really open source if its run by a company that will eventually use its position to squeeze its users for cash.<p>I know it&#x27;s not as popular or sexy as it used to be, but the whole point of a foundation like Apache was to avoid these situations, even more than the way the Linux Foundation is setup. Apache _explicitly_ manages projects to avoid these downsides.<p>- Single corporation ownership. Projects cannot get out of the Incubator unless they demonstrate a diverse and healthy community. That doesn&#x27;t mean popular, it doesn&#x27;t necessarily mean best-in-class, but it means that there shouldn&#x27;t be just one entity backing a project.<p>- Membership in Apache is _personal_ not a seat for a given company. If you&#x27;re a committer on an Apache project and you move jobs, you&#x27;re _still_ a committer on that project<p>- The Foundation owns the trademarks. There have been fights about this in the past, but the whole idea is that the _community_ owns the name, so some corporation can&#x27;t claim to be the sole or official owner by naming their company or product after the open source product.<p>The core premise of the Apache Software Foundation is community over code, that healthy, diverse communities have a better chance of standing the test of time than open source projects backed by a single individual or company. That&#x27;s the thesis at least.<p>The is starkly different from several other foundations, notably the Linux Foundation or Eclipse Foundation which are modeled more around industry consortiums.<p>Both models have their place, but I believe Apache better models the core values many of us feel strongly about when it comes to free and open source software.</text></comment> | <story><title>CockroachDB license change</title><url>https://www.cockroachlabs.com/enterprise-license-update/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrewmutz</author><text>It seems that whenever an open source project is run by a VC-backed company, it sooner or later ends up like this. Increasingly it seems that &quot;open source&quot; is just the teaser to get people interested and then when investors want revenue growth, the rug gets pulled.<p>IMO, it&#x27;s not really open source if its run by a company that will eventually use its position to squeeze its users for cash.</text></item><item><author>AYBABTME</author><text>I understand the goal, and the perceived abuse of the Core edition. But the problem with the Enterprise edition is that it&#x27;s quite expensive, &quot;contact us&quot; salesy, and it feels like taking a bite of this edition is possibly getting into bed with a future Oracle&#x2F;landlord type of relationship where you end up squeezed by your database vendor.<p>The Core offering made this palatable, one could fallback to Core features if the relationship with Cockroach Labs degraded, which made it possible to entertain the Enterprise license since there&#x27;s was a way to walk back from it. But now there&#x27;s no such mitigation available. By using non-PG native features, users of the Enterprise edition are accepting to get in bed with Cockroach Labs for effectively forever (databases), a single provider that has no competition.<p>I think this may backfire, as it now seems imprudent to go all in on Cockroach Labs. They may be nice folks today, but who knows who will run the place in 5y when the next round of squeeze comes?<p>I wish them the best, they&#x27;re a great team and I always liked the project and toyed with it for years, and currently am involved with a paid Enterprise license. But this change in the dynamics is really giving me pause.<p>Getting in bed with a single vendor for an incredibly sticky tool comes with a _lot_ of risk. It took at least 17y for Amazon to get rid of its last Oracle database: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;aws.amazon.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;aws&#x2F;migration-complete-amazons-consumer-business-just-turned-off-its-final-oracle-database&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;aws.amazon.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;aws&#x2F;migration-complete-amazons-...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>haolez</author><text>Old(?) school open source with GPL licenses doesn&#x27;t seem to suffer from this, on a first glance. Maybe Stallman was right. Would love to hear from someone more knowledgeable on this. I&#x27;m not trying to troll.</text></comment> |
19,737,918 | 19,737,548 | 1 | 2 | 19,737,012 | train | <story><title>Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/technology/ecuador-surveillance-cameras-police-government.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cyph0n</author><text>I know many from various Middle Eastern countries who share a similar viewpoint.<p>As an Arab myself, I see it as nothing more than a defeatist attitude that is typically held by those who have enough money and connections (typically upper class).<p>Safety and democracy can coexist and are not mutually exclusive as you claim. The safest countries in the world are democracies last I checked.<p>Democracy is not only about “abstract notions of liberty”, but also (and more importantly) about justice and equality for all. When these “lesser-educated” people are held in prison without trial for watching the wrong Youtube video or practicing the wrong religion, they also realize this fact.</text></item><item><author>throwanon</author><text>I grew up in a third-world country, and I&#x27;ve noticed a palpable shift in the moods of my educated, middle-class friends and family back home.<p>People in many third-world countries have been fed the line that democracy is the correct form of government.
This isn&#x27;t accidental: the soft power of Hollywood and the myth of American exceptionalism have been powerful incentives to have faith in the ability of democratic institutions to improve lives: it&#x27;s an odd form of cargo-cultism, and if you are a believer in freedom and democracy, a &quot;helpful delusion&quot;. The educated elites in third world democracies have recoiled from the notion of authoritarianism, and from the idea of having every aspect of their lives surveilled for safety.<p>Political events in the US, the rise of social media, and the risks of virality unexpectedly unleashing mob chaos have made them a lot more wary. Openness and the exchange of ideas exposes the worst of human nature: the trolls whose ideas are magnified by algorithms seeking to capture attention. The propagandists and bots with their massive reach are noticed by educated people, who can see how powerless or unwilling social networks and governments are to stop them. It doesn&#x27;t matter whether the propagandists succeed or not-their mere unfettered existence is enough to disturb people.<p>With the weakening of democratic norms, other options are suddenly back on the table. As people have theoretically become freer, they seem to seek more security. Blanketing a city with CCTV seems to be a pragmatic trade-off for personal safety. The censorship of China seems to be attractive because of the endless hateful noise of social media, the orderliness of having criminals removed from society permanently via the death penalty suddenly seems attractive. The lesser-educated never really cared for abstract notions of liberty anyway. In short, the authoritarian surveillance state is an increasingly attractive proposition to large swathes of humanity.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>njepa</author><text>While I agree with your overall point, I am not sure I would attribute defeatism to the rest of the world so much as the West. It is the West that is set to remove any form of commonality and turn to a state of legalized corruption and nepotism. The Chinese, Russians and Arabs are just copying the West. They are the ones getting the high-rises, roads and subways. And people are actually seeing progress.<p>If the West ever returns to the idea of democratic society where everyone should have access to education, housing and good working conditions. Where we run our countries, our infrastructure and invest in scientific progress together. And where we believe that running businesses in line with the values of society is better. Then they would want democracy as well.</text></comment> | <story><title>Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/technology/ecuador-surveillance-cameras-police-government.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Cyph0n</author><text>I know many from various Middle Eastern countries who share a similar viewpoint.<p>As an Arab myself, I see it as nothing more than a defeatist attitude that is typically held by those who have enough money and connections (typically upper class).<p>Safety and democracy can coexist and are not mutually exclusive as you claim. The safest countries in the world are democracies last I checked.<p>Democracy is not only about “abstract notions of liberty”, but also (and more importantly) about justice and equality for all. When these “lesser-educated” people are held in prison without trial for watching the wrong Youtube video or practicing the wrong religion, they also realize this fact.</text></item><item><author>throwanon</author><text>I grew up in a third-world country, and I&#x27;ve noticed a palpable shift in the moods of my educated, middle-class friends and family back home.<p>People in many third-world countries have been fed the line that democracy is the correct form of government.
This isn&#x27;t accidental: the soft power of Hollywood and the myth of American exceptionalism have been powerful incentives to have faith in the ability of democratic institutions to improve lives: it&#x27;s an odd form of cargo-cultism, and if you are a believer in freedom and democracy, a &quot;helpful delusion&quot;. The educated elites in third world democracies have recoiled from the notion of authoritarianism, and from the idea of having every aspect of their lives surveilled for safety.<p>Political events in the US, the rise of social media, and the risks of virality unexpectedly unleashing mob chaos have made them a lot more wary. Openness and the exchange of ideas exposes the worst of human nature: the trolls whose ideas are magnified by algorithms seeking to capture attention. The propagandists and bots with their massive reach are noticed by educated people, who can see how powerless or unwilling social networks and governments are to stop them. It doesn&#x27;t matter whether the propagandists succeed or not-their mere unfettered existence is enough to disturb people.<p>With the weakening of democratic norms, other options are suddenly back on the table. As people have theoretically become freer, they seem to seek more security. Blanketing a city with CCTV seems to be a pragmatic trade-off for personal safety. The censorship of China seems to be attractive because of the endless hateful noise of social media, the orderliness of having criminals removed from society permanently via the death penalty suddenly seems attractive. The lesser-educated never really cared for abstract notions of liberty anyway. In short, the authoritarian surveillance state is an increasingly attractive proposition to large swathes of humanity.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>0815test</author><text>The thing that makes authoritarianism superficially attractive in the Middle East is the absolute lack of anything even loosely resembling civil-society institutions of the sorts that are ubiquitous in Western societies. Why allow basic freedoms when the people aren&#x27;t going to use them for the good of society? It&#x27;s a vicious cycle and a very thorny issue to address.<p>Ironically enough, the <i>closest</i> thing these folks get to actual civil society, is their religious institutions - the mosques, the madrassas and so forth. This also makes Islamic fundamentalism a lot more seductive to them than it might otherwise be, because in many ways they experience religion as the <i>best</i> working, <i>least</i> corrupt, etc. part of their society, and they naturally seek something that can replicate that <i>relative</i> openness and lack of corruption across the board.</text></comment> |
11,221,553 | 11,221,527 | 1 | 2 | 11,220,800 | train | <story><title>Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.</title><url>http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/computing/it/reports-coming-in-of-mass-us-layoffs-underway-today-at-ibm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mathattack</author><text>Here&#x27;s what I don&#x27;t get... If you have any options at all, why stay at a company with sub-par technology that abuses their workers? They&#x27;ve been stuck in low 3 Glassdoor [0] range for a while. It&#x27;s layoff after layoff as they slowly dismantle the company. Why stay? Geographic limitations? Narrow skillsets?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&#x2F;Reviews&#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trends-overallRating" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&#x2F;Reviews&#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trend...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dredmorbius</author><text>Among other factors mentioned: employer-specific skillsets.<p>Technology jobs are <i>very</i> highly specialised. And I&#x27;m not just speaking of computer tech.<p>I&#x27;m old enough to have seen several generations of obsoleted &quot;gold tickets&quot;. Nuclear Engineering, future destroyed March 28, 1979. Freeway engineers, the freeway protests of the 1960s&#x2F;1970s. Big Three auto manufacturers, dream destroyed with the first oil embargo, and sudden onslaught of more fuel efficient, less expensive, and <i>better quality</i> imports from Japan and Germany. Petroleum engineers, dream destroyed as the oil market collapsed in the 1980s. Aerospace engineers, dream destroyed with the fall of the Soviet Union and redundancies in the military-industrial complex throughout NATO powers.<p>Travel agents, newspaper journalists, and Perl hackers are only more recent victims of the same levels of specialisation.<p>It&#x27;s not that these people are <i>dumb</i>, many were brilliant. But they&#x27;re also laden with a <i>tremendous</i> amount of arcane knowledge, that, unfortunately, <i>gets in the way</i> of learning new skills.<p>It&#x27;s been painfully obvious for a long time that, individual success stories notwithstanding, retraining and &quot;reskilling&quot; typically does very little to alleviate this.<p>Yes, <i>future</i> generations get trained into new skills, some of which may still be germaine 4-8 years after they&#x27;ve completed schooling. But my observation is that job and skill cycles are iterating faster.<p>So that&#x27;s a part of it.<p>Yes, there are other dimensions. Obligations, family ties, social ties, fears, the fact that the most mobile <i>do</i> jump ship first, and more.<p>But really, it&#x27;s quite crushing. You may not understand it now, but you almost certainly will, eventually.</text></comment> | <story><title>Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.</title><url>http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/computing/it/reports-coming-in-of-mass-us-layoffs-underway-today-at-ibm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mathattack</author><text>Here&#x27;s what I don&#x27;t get... If you have any options at all, why stay at a company with sub-par technology that abuses their workers? They&#x27;ve been stuck in low 3 Glassdoor [0] range for a while. It&#x27;s layoff after layoff as they slowly dismantle the company. Why stay? Geographic limitations? Narrow skillsets?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&#x2F;Reviews&#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trends-overallRating" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.glassdoor.com&#x2F;Reviews&#x2F;IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trend...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattgrice</author><text>Say you&#x27;re a support person working at IBM in Dubuque, Iowa, where local and state taxpayers spent $50M to lure IBM in a delusion of becoming a tech hub. [1] You specialize in Lotus Notes support for local businesses like Hormel. Last year, IBM laid off 2&#x2F;3 of their Dubuque workforce, 700 people, in a city of 60,000. More than 1% of the population. Your only skill is Notes, same as dozens of other people that were laid off. The nearest cities of any note are Cedar Rapids and Madison, both more than an hour away. You know you need to get out, but where and how?<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2015-05-19&#x2F;iowa-spent-50-million-to-lure-ibm-then-the-firings-started" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;articles&#x2F;2015-05-19&#x2F;iowa-spent...</a></text></comment> |
16,261,162 | 16,260,911 | 1 | 2 | 16,260,320 | train | <story><title>Software Complexity Is Killing Us</title><url>https://www.simplethread.com/software-complexity-killing-us/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blunte</author><text>Blah <i>bullshit</i> blah.<p>The reason software is so complex now is that our expectations as users is orders of magnitude higher than it was &quot;in the good old days&quot;. I&#x27;m old enough to remember the good old days, so I can speak with a little authority here.<p>The Pareto principle may not be exactly accurate, but it describes many situations quite well. And in software, it fits very well. 80% of the requirements take about 20% of the code (and complexity). It&#x27;s the edge and special cases that add the bulk of the work.<p>When a program just did one useful thing, we humans would do our human thing and integrate several different programs with our manual effort. If an edge case appeared, we didn&#x27;t even identify it as an edge case - we&#x27;re built for handling edge cases! We just made the minor _human_ judgement and fixed the data and pushed it into the next program.<p>Software is complex because we&#x27;re trying to make it replace more human activity. And beyond the core functionality, human activity is all about applying human judgement. If anyone is familiar with people training people on a particular task, particularly the quaint concept of apprenticeship, it involves teaching and showing and mentoring until a student has enough knowledge AND wisdom to get the job done.<p>So to boil it down, modern software is primarily complex because it attempts to replicate human judgement and wisdom.<p>That software complexity is not killing us. It may be a pain in the ass, but if anyone can remember what it was like before we had these tools, I would dare to say that it&#x27;s still a whole lot better than before computers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ravenstine</author><text>I disagree. Users, in reality, don&#x27;t care about all the crap that stakeholders and some developers care about. They don&#x27;t care about Material design, fancy animations, beautiful buttons, &quot;elegant&quot; code,a ton of niche features, mobile apps(no I&#x27;m not kidding), your annoying push notifications, your fancy menu bars that you also fix to the top of the screen for whatever reason, your autoplay videos, your little &quot;delightful&quot; asides that interrupt the content, etc. They want something that <i>works</i> without much effort or worry that the software will fail, and that doesn&#x27;t necessarily have to do with how fancy or feature rich an app is.<p>Craigslist and the Quartz app are just a few examples of what I&#x27;m talking about. Nobody except maybe some stakeholders ever asked for those things to be more fancy than they are. They are simple and they work. The end.<p>Unfortunately, we are in an era where everyone wants to be like Google, or at least thinks they need to. I do not believe that the rest of the world would be worse off if they stopped spending time making &quot;production ready&quot; software that visually competes with the Big 5.<p>Software becomes complex because we allow it to become complex. Just because you can add another feature doesn&#x27;t mean that you now have more value for a finite amount of pay for X developer time. Companies seem often blind to continual costs for support that go up every time each time the solution is to add a new feature or software package for a small segment of the customer base or the company itself.<p>Whomever is in charge should acquiesce less often. But everyone wants to be a wizard.</text></comment> | <story><title>Software Complexity Is Killing Us</title><url>https://www.simplethread.com/software-complexity-killing-us/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>blunte</author><text>Blah <i>bullshit</i> blah.<p>The reason software is so complex now is that our expectations as users is orders of magnitude higher than it was &quot;in the good old days&quot;. I&#x27;m old enough to remember the good old days, so I can speak with a little authority here.<p>The Pareto principle may not be exactly accurate, but it describes many situations quite well. And in software, it fits very well. 80% of the requirements take about 20% of the code (and complexity). It&#x27;s the edge and special cases that add the bulk of the work.<p>When a program just did one useful thing, we humans would do our human thing and integrate several different programs with our manual effort. If an edge case appeared, we didn&#x27;t even identify it as an edge case - we&#x27;re built for handling edge cases! We just made the minor _human_ judgement and fixed the data and pushed it into the next program.<p>Software is complex because we&#x27;re trying to make it replace more human activity. And beyond the core functionality, human activity is all about applying human judgement. If anyone is familiar with people training people on a particular task, particularly the quaint concept of apprenticeship, it involves teaching and showing and mentoring until a student has enough knowledge AND wisdom to get the job done.<p>So to boil it down, modern software is primarily complex because it attempts to replicate human judgement and wisdom.<p>That software complexity is not killing us. It may be a pain in the ass, but if anyone can remember what it was like before we had these tools, I would dare to say that it&#x27;s still a whole lot better than before computers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jetheredge</author><text>Author here... we talk a lot at our company about essential complexity and incidental&#x2F;accidental complexity. Software is complex, absolutely. It is complex because business and reality are complex. I think that is inescapable. What we can try to escape though is the incidental complexity that we add to our systems while we are following trends or chasing down shiny new tools.</text></comment> |
16,746,985 | 16,747,031 | 1 | 3 | 16,746,426 | train | <story><title>Capacitor: Universal Web Applications</title><url>https://capacitor.ionicframework.com</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>yesimahuman</author><text>Capacitor creator&#x2F;Ionic co-founder here. Didn’t expect to see this on the front page! Disclaimer: it’s still alpha.<p>We’re building Capacitor based on feedback from the Ionic community to improve our ability to move across platforms such as App Store&#x2F;web&#x2F;electron, make it easier to interact with Native SDKs, mix web and native UI, and manage native app projects&#x2F;tooling.<p>One feature I&#x27;m really excited about is having Web UI implementations of many Native experiences when running on the web&#x2F;electron. Here&#x27;s an example of how the `Camera` plugin looks when running in the web: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;maxlynch&#x2F;status&#x2F;961749127657910272" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;maxlynch&#x2F;status&#x2F;961749127657910272</a>. This uses our new Ionic Web Components so you can easily use these controls with low overhead even if you aren&#x27;t using Ionic.<p>We hope Capacitor will be useful to other web developers that want to build mobile and desktop web apps, even if they aren’t using Ionic, and we’re building support for hitting the hybrid sweet spot of native UI shell (nav&#x2F;menus) with web content.<p>Capacitor will eventually be replacing Cordova in Ionic’s toolchain so it’s going to be a core part of the experience.</text></comment> | <story><title>Capacitor: Universal Web Applications</title><url>https://capacitor.ionicframework.com</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jacquesc</author><text>Glad to see they&#x27;re moving beyond Cordova&#x27;s main issue: trying to fully automate the native build processes with disastrous results.<p>I am perfectly happy opening up Xcode to build and configure. Same with Android Studio. Trying to find a &quot;Cordova solution&quot; to very common build tasks was a continual nightmare for me.<p>I ended up just switching to React Native to wrap a progressive web app. It makes no sense since I&#x27;m only using a single React component (UIWebView), but the build &#x2F; deploy process was just so much easier to manage than the mess of Cordova scripts and outdated&#x2F;broken plugins.</text></comment> |
27,947,787 | 27,947,566 | 1 | 3 | 27,947,004 | train | <story><title>PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects</title><url>https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deltaonefour</author><text>&gt;That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.<p>I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you&#x27;re in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior.<p>The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface</text></item><item><author>matkoniecz</author><text>&gt; I&#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones.<p>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.<p>&gt; How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford?<p>In many cases they win by default. If &quot;no leaking of personal data&quot; is on mandatory feature list then Pinephones are already better than Android!<p>And there are many projects where there is simply no commercial product at all and is unlikely to ever appear.</text></item><item><author>that_guy_iain</author><text>&gt; Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.<p>I&#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? The reality is, we can&#x27;t. And we&#x27;ll always compare PinePhone and other things to iOS and Android and they&#x27;ll always come up short.<p>Also, a large part of using a smart phone is the apps. Without apps the phone is just really a phone.<p>For me, to want to use PinePhone they would need to make it super easy to have Android on there.</text></item><item><author>katmannthree</author><text>The pinephone is great, in fact I&#x27;m typing this comment from mine.<p>That said, fair warning to anyone thinking about getting one: it&#x27;s slow, buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive &#x2F; answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work).<p>Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>superasn</author><text>I used to feel the exact same way until 2 years ago. But my experience has been absolutely brilliant with Linux mint in the last 2 years. No driver issues, super nice UI and everything just works now!<p>As a matter of fact the only use I have for Windows now is for playing games (also Photoshop).<p>Otoh the amount of clutter and issues I have to deal in Win10 is just bad. I digress but thankfully there is a tool called &quot;Shutup 10&quot; that makes Windows much less annoying.</text></comment> | <story><title>PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects</title><url>https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deltaonefour</author><text>&gt;That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.<p>I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you&#x27;re in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior.<p>The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface</text></item><item><author>matkoniecz</author><text>&gt; I&#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones.<p>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.<p>&gt; How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford?<p>In many cases they win by default. If &quot;no leaking of personal data&quot; is on mandatory feature list then Pinephones are already better than Android!<p>And there are many projects where there is simply no commercial product at all and is unlikely to ever appear.</text></item><item><author>that_guy_iain</author><text>&gt; Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.<p>I&#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? The reality is, we can&#x27;t. And we&#x27;ll always compare PinePhone and other things to iOS and Android and they&#x27;ll always come up short.<p>Also, a large part of using a smart phone is the apps. Without apps the phone is just really a phone.<p>For me, to want to use PinePhone they would need to make it super easy to have Android on there.</text></item><item><author>katmannthree</author><text>The pinephone is great, in fact I&#x27;m typing this comment from mine.<p>That said, fair warning to anyone thinking about getting one: it&#x27;s slow, buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive &#x2F; answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work).<p>Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gm</author><text>LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can&#x27;t get their audio&#x2F;video working for routine meetings?<p>If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.</text></comment> |
12,746,140 | 12,746,332 | 1 | 3 | 12,743,316 | train | <story><title>More than 90% of ‘genuine’ Apple chargers and cables sold on Amazon are fake</title><url>https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/19/amazon-fake-apple-chargers-cables/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DashRattlesnake</author><text>&gt; Over the past year I&#x27;ve gotten increasingly frustrated with the overall Quality of the Amazon shopping &quot;experience.&quot;<p>Me too, and I can add:<p>6. Spend time figuring out if the product is available locally for the same (or better) price. I feel like sucker buying from Amazon and waiting a <i>minimum</i> of 2 days to get something I could have gotten locally in 20 minutes for the same&#x2F;cheaper price.<p>7. Deal with Amazon&#x27;s new, <i>terrible</i> delivery service. Using untrained, un-unformed randos to deliver packages in their personal vehicles means my deliveries get screwed up <i>much</i>, <i>much</i> more frequently. I&#x27;ve had these people fail follow my package delivery instructions <i>that are posted on my door</i> (deliver to the apartment office, rather than leaving at the door), <i>even after I&#x27;ve talked to them personally.</i> No other delivery service has this problem. I blame Amazon for this experience far more than the drivers.<p>It&#x27;s gotten to the point where I only go to Amazon for less-common long-tail stuff. If it&#x27;s an item that may be reasonably available at a retailer, I just shop locally.</text></item><item><author>mox1</author><text>Over the past year I&#x27;ve gotten increasingly frustrated with the overall Quality of the Amazon shopping &quot;experience.&quot;<p>I used to be able to trust Amazon. I could simply type in the type of item I wanted, search for the highest reviewed &#x2F; rated and click buy.<p>Now, I have to:<p>1. Wade through the Ads and crap products to find what I actually searched for.<p>2. Read all of the comments, perform some type of judgement whether these are fake reviews, sponsored reviews, etc.<p>3. Figure out if it is &quot;Fulfilled by Amazon&quot; or sold directly (I only recently realized all of the &quot;Fulfilled by Amazon&quot; items get commingled, so I&#x27;m getting basically god knows what).<p>4. If Fulfilled, now I have to research how reputable the selling company is. Just yesterday I found a company selling baby formula, whose domain name was registered last month, and via a privacy service!?!!? If you can&#x27;t list your business address, I&#x27;m not buying from you.<p>5. Now I need to determine whether the sold by Amazon item is fake or legit. Lets hope some other sucker buys it before me and posts a good review.<p>At this point, I would rather just goto Target or Walgreens, CVSm etc and buy the damn thing. Taking 20-30 minutes to research every purchase is getting very old.<p>...But hey 2 day shipping for $8&#x2F; month right!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Klathmon</author><text>I had 10 packages in a row not get delivered by them (there was stuff shipped by USPS and UPS in between them), and every time I called up, they would give me the same &quot;free month of prime&quot; and promise that they would know the directions next time...<p>Many of the occasions they would call me asking for directions (one time a driver called me 5 times in a row from a washington number, never left a message. I was in a work meeting and though someone died...), then literally minutes later would mark the package as undeliverable.<p>I finally spoke to someone there one night named Sara and spent over 2 hours on the phone with her while she refunded the whole order (like $100 of random &quot;IoT&quot; stuff), stayed on the phone with me while she got GPS coordinates from me (with my offering them from an app on my phone), put my address in their system, put a bunch of notes about how to get to my house, made sure the package would be delivered the next day. The packages are finally getting delivered (i made sure to call back and make sure her manager knew how much she helped), but I still have issues where the drivers just won&#x27;t deliver it, or will beat the crap out of it.<p>Hell just a week or 2 ago I found a bubble mailer blowing down the road, by chance I decided to pick it up to throw it out assuming it was trash, only to find it was addressed to ME! Turns out it was something that should have been delivered a few days ago.<p>I&#x27;m not reupping my prime subscription when it&#x27;s up. I already don&#x27;t go with amazon if I need anything quick, because there&#x27;s like a 50% chance it will take 4-5 days to get to me, even with prime.</text></comment> | <story><title>More than 90% of ‘genuine’ Apple chargers and cables sold on Amazon are fake</title><url>https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/19/amazon-fake-apple-chargers-cables/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>DashRattlesnake</author><text>&gt; Over the past year I&#x27;ve gotten increasingly frustrated with the overall Quality of the Amazon shopping &quot;experience.&quot;<p>Me too, and I can add:<p>6. Spend time figuring out if the product is available locally for the same (or better) price. I feel like sucker buying from Amazon and waiting a <i>minimum</i> of 2 days to get something I could have gotten locally in 20 minutes for the same&#x2F;cheaper price.<p>7. Deal with Amazon&#x27;s new, <i>terrible</i> delivery service. Using untrained, un-unformed randos to deliver packages in their personal vehicles means my deliveries get screwed up <i>much</i>, <i>much</i> more frequently. I&#x27;ve had these people fail follow my package delivery instructions <i>that are posted on my door</i> (deliver to the apartment office, rather than leaving at the door), <i>even after I&#x27;ve talked to them personally.</i> No other delivery service has this problem. I blame Amazon for this experience far more than the drivers.<p>It&#x27;s gotten to the point where I only go to Amazon for less-common long-tail stuff. If it&#x27;s an item that may be reasonably available at a retailer, I just shop locally.</text></item><item><author>mox1</author><text>Over the past year I&#x27;ve gotten increasingly frustrated with the overall Quality of the Amazon shopping &quot;experience.&quot;<p>I used to be able to trust Amazon. I could simply type in the type of item I wanted, search for the highest reviewed &#x2F; rated and click buy.<p>Now, I have to:<p>1. Wade through the Ads and crap products to find what I actually searched for.<p>2. Read all of the comments, perform some type of judgement whether these are fake reviews, sponsored reviews, etc.<p>3. Figure out if it is &quot;Fulfilled by Amazon&quot; or sold directly (I only recently realized all of the &quot;Fulfilled by Amazon&quot; items get commingled, so I&#x27;m getting basically god knows what).<p>4. If Fulfilled, now I have to research how reputable the selling company is. Just yesterday I found a company selling baby formula, whose domain name was registered last month, and via a privacy service!?!!? If you can&#x27;t list your business address, I&#x27;m not buying from you.<p>5. Now I need to determine whether the sold by Amazon item is fake or legit. Lets hope some other sucker buys it before me and posts a good review.<p>At this point, I would rather just goto Target or Walgreens, CVSm etc and buy the damn thing. Taking 20-30 minutes to research every purchase is getting very old.<p>...But hey 2 day shipping for $8&#x2F; month right!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jeff_petersen</author><text>&gt; Deal with Amazon&#x27;s new, terrible delivery service<p>God, this has bitten me more times than it should have before I stopped buying from Amazon. Several times they marked an item as delivered even though it wasn&#x27;t (I was home all day and nobody came to the door for any reason, no trucks on the street), presumably because they have a package quota and they aggressively overstuff their drivers. Once they delivered it, but left it right at the head of my driveway. What a huge pain.</text></comment> |
41,183,447 | 41,183,177 | 1 | 2 | 41,176,461 | train | <story><title>How French Drains Work</title><url>https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/8/6/how-french-drains-work</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>refibrillator</author><text>I’ve built quite a few french drains in residential settings, some lasting longer than others - I’ll share a few hard earned lessons here:<p>Soil migration is the number one failure mode. This is mentioned but perhaps a bit understated in the video.<p>To prevent soil migration you absolutely need commercial grade geotextile fabric wrapping the gravel and pipe.<p>You can buy pipe with much bigger and more numerous holes than the tiny slits depicted in the video. That also obviates the need to decide what orientation the holes should be.<p>Void space is the most critical factor when choosing gravel. You need a lot of space between the rocks to support fast drainage. Do not use playground pebbles or anything similar. Pay close attention to the type of aggregate you’re buying.<p>Calculate how much water you actually need to drain. You can use the “100 year flood” values for your locale to get an upper bound on rainfall, then multiple by drainage area. This is especially important if your roof is part of the watershed.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usgs.gov&#x2F;special-topics&#x2F;water-science-school&#x2F;science&#x2F;100-year-flood#overview" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usgs.gov&#x2F;special-topics&#x2F;water-science-school&#x2F;sci...</a><p>Sometimes there is insufficient gradient to move the water anywhere, ie the land is too flat. In this case you may be better off building a drywell, which is constructed very similarly.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dry_well" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dry_well</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eitally</author><text>Our first house was one a 1&#x2F;2ac lot at the end (bottom -- this will become important later) of a cul-de-sac in a great semi-urban neighborhood in Cary, NC. We learned after repeated backyard flooding and near-incursion of storm water into our patio door that our street had been built on what had been the original stormwater collection pond for the larger neighborhood. The builder got permission from the city to move the pond to build our cul-de-sac, but that didn&#x27;t stop our street from still being the lowest point in the neighborhood, where all surface water ran-off to, and our house was at the very lowest point.<p>Long story short, we ended up installing a french drain on two sides of our house, putting a drain at the end of our driveway to redirect water [from just running down our driveway to our house], having the front wall foundation rebuilt and jacked up because the footer had nearly completely eroded (1970s house), and still needed to add two 24&quot; square drain boxes in the back yard (with buried 4&quot; PVC draining into the creek at the back of the property) to remediate all this. It was also a tree-filled lot and the drain boxes would almost immediately clog with leaves during heavy rains, so I spent a lot of time out there in ankle to knee deep water with a rake to keep the drains clear.<p>This still wasn&#x27;t enough! We got a so much surface run-off from our uphill neighbors that it looked like a sheet of rushing water across our backyard during heavy storms. We had a creek at the back of the property but were not allowed to mess with it because of Corps of Engineers easement regulations. At the end of the day, we <i>finally</i> solved our problems by getting an agreement from our neighbor to let us dig a surface water drain from the low point in their yard into the creek, and then we&#x27;d build a &quot;temporary&quot; (cf prior easement rules against permanent walls) berm along the property line to prevent surface water from coming into our yard at all. That &quot;berm&quot; was 76 bags of Qwikrete stacked three high and covered with grass clippings, yard waste &amp; mulch. Technically we could have removed it if the city had inspected, but it was very much a cement wall.<p>We have never since, and never will, build or purchase a house at the bottom of a hill.</text></comment> | <story><title>How French Drains Work</title><url>https://practical.engineering/blog/2024/8/6/how-french-drains-work</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>refibrillator</author><text>I’ve built quite a few french drains in residential settings, some lasting longer than others - I’ll share a few hard earned lessons here:<p>Soil migration is the number one failure mode. This is mentioned but perhaps a bit understated in the video.<p>To prevent soil migration you absolutely need commercial grade geotextile fabric wrapping the gravel and pipe.<p>You can buy pipe with much bigger and more numerous holes than the tiny slits depicted in the video. That also obviates the need to decide what orientation the holes should be.<p>Void space is the most critical factor when choosing gravel. You need a lot of space between the rocks to support fast drainage. Do not use playground pebbles or anything similar. Pay close attention to the type of aggregate you’re buying.<p>Calculate how much water you actually need to drain. You can use the “100 year flood” values for your locale to get an upper bound on rainfall, then multiple by drainage area. This is especially important if your roof is part of the watershed.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usgs.gov&#x2F;special-topics&#x2F;water-science-school&#x2F;science&#x2F;100-year-flood#overview" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usgs.gov&#x2F;special-topics&#x2F;water-science-school&#x2F;sci...</a><p>Sometimes there is insufficient gradient to move the water anywhere, ie the land is too flat. In this case you may be better off building a drywell, which is constructed very similarly.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dry_well" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Dry_well</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hatsix</author><text>Not sure you watched the whole video, he shows how soil migration causes failure (7:30), links to another video that covers that in-depth and discusses how geotextile isn&#x27;t enough for things like damns (10:15). He also mentions that you can get pipe with holes all the way around (5:58).</text></comment> |
5,415,119 | 5,415,104 | 1 | 3 | 5,414,866 | train | <story><title>Sendgrid is down</title><url>http://support.sendgrid.com/entries/23417077-21-Mar-Website-Down-Refusing-Mail</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>efa</author><text>SG customer as well. What's all the negativity towards them? Is there something I should know about them? I wasn't aware of any incidents.</text></item><item><author>slig</author><text>Even though I'm a SG customer, I can't help but feel a little schadenfreude.<p>edit: when I made this comment I thought this was a random service failure that would last couple of minutes. More than 1 hour later, I don't think it's that funny anymore as I'm being affected as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>adambenayoun</author><text>There's not much negativity toward them just a bit of criticism on how they're handling this outage.
As I mentioned in another comment of mine on that thread - they should have reached out to customers and let them know there's an outage (especially if this is an outage that is &#62; 10 minutes).<p>P.S: I still think Sendgrid are awesome and fortunately they'll listen to what we have to say and next outage will be handled differently.</text></comment> | <story><title>Sendgrid is down</title><url>http://support.sendgrid.com/entries/23417077-21-Mar-Website-Down-Refusing-Mail</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>efa</author><text>SG customer as well. What's all the negativity towards them? Is there something I should know about them? I wasn't aware of any incidents.</text></item><item><author>slig</author><text>Even though I'm a SG customer, I can't help but feel a little schadenfreude.<p>edit: when I made this comment I thought this was a random service failure that would last couple of minutes. More than 1 hour later, I don't think it's that funny anymore as I'm being affected as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spindritf</author><text><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5410515" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5410515</a></text></comment> |
38,011,479 | 38,009,629 | 1 | 3 | 38,008,461 | train | <story><title>MAME 0.260</title><url>https://www.mamedev.org/?p=530</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rebolek</author><text>MAME supports Casio CZ-101? My favourite synth? I thought MAME is for arcade emulation.<p>Anyway, I need to try it, I love it&#x27;đ sound, I wonder how close it is to original.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ajxs</author><text>I&#x27;m super impressed that someone has emulated the CZ-101&#x27;s sound generation LSI!<p>Lots of people use MAME as an emulator to help reverse-engineering vintage synthesisers. I only recently discovered this too. Since most 80s synths were built mostly out of &#x27;off the shelf&#x27; components, it&#x27;s not too difficult to build a MAME driver which is capable of running the synth&#x27;s firmware. The actual sound generation is another story though.<p>I wrote a MAME driver for the Yamaha DX9 while working on this project: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ajxs&#x2F;yamaha_dx97">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ajxs&#x2F;yamaha_dx97</a><p>I wrote a little bit about the project here in case anyone is interested: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ajxs.me&#x2F;blog&#x2F;Hacking_the_Yamaha_DX9_To_Turn_It_Into_a_DX7.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ajxs.me&#x2F;blog&#x2F;Hacking_the_Yamaha_DX9_To_Turn_It_Into_...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>MAME 0.260</title><url>https://www.mamedev.org/?p=530</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rebolek</author><text>MAME supports Casio CZ-101? My favourite synth? I thought MAME is for arcade emulation.<p>Anyway, I need to try it, I love it&#x27;đ sound, I wonder how close it is to original.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>codetrotter</author><text>Speaking of which, see also Bintracker. A Chiptune Audio Workstation that uses MAME as emulation backend.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bintracker.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bintracker.org&#x2F;</a><p>Recently discussed on HN about 49 days ago. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37377529">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=37377529</a></text></comment> |
8,092,344 | 8,092,364 | 1 | 3 | 8,092,273 | train | <story><title>X64_dbg: An open-source x64/x86 debugger for Windows</title><url>http://x64dbg.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>sspiff</author><text>Minor nitpick: X32 is not &quot;32-bit x86&quot;, it&#x27;s an entirely different ABI[1], using 32-bit pointers but the (faster) 64-bit instructions.<p>You&#x27;re better of just calling it x86 to describe the 32-bit instruction set.<p>I love the connections between jumps and landing sites though, very helpful!<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;X32_ABI</a></text></comment> | <story><title>X64_dbg: An open-source x64/x86 debugger for Windows</title><url>http://x64dbg.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>farresito</author><text>Hey, great work! It&#x27;s a little bit unfortunate it doesn&#x27;t work for Linux, since I&#x27;ve been looking for something like that for a long time and haven&#x27;t found one, yet.<p>How hard would it be to port this to Linux? What would need to be ported? I don&#x27;t have much free time, but I might be able to contribute to a port for Linux, given enough free time.</text></comment> |
37,418,203 | 37,416,410 | 1 | 3 | 37,408,822 | train | <story><title>Tamagotchi Connection</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi_Connection</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nonrandomstring</author><text>Tamagotchi are an ingenious psychological and social gambit, paving
the way for smartphones. An electronic dependent, halfway between a
doll and a game that hooks into the formative maternal and caring
instincts of a child, almost 20 years before the modern smartphone
(1996 -&gt; 2016). Don&#x27;t feed it? It dies. Fail to socialise it? It gets
lonely for friends. B.J Fogg eat your heart out!<p>Now we grew up into mums and dads with adult Tamagotchi, always hungry
for a battery charge, requiring constant attention, even distracting
us from our real children.<p>This is one of the lesser seen dangers of AI in personal tech. Not
that it will become a dominating , directing force, but that it will
become something so deeply needy. Something in which we indulge all
our affections instead of with real people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ethbr1</author><text>&gt; <i>... that [AI] will become something so deeply needy. Something in which we indulge all our affections instead of with real people.</i><p>Business is way ahead of you in intentionally building this -- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;93bqbp&#x2F;can-you-be-in-relationship-with-replika" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;93bqbp&#x2F;can-you-be-in-relatio...</a><p>Turns out, mimicking emotional connection is something LLMs are also good at.<p>Also see here for the moral quandaries users are working through (e.g. do I tell my bot about my real life partner): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;replika&#x2F;comments&#x2F;105g425&#x2F;replika_as_a_mistress&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;replika&#x2F;comments&#x2F;105g425&#x2F;replika_as...</a><p>The really dystopian part is that Replika regularly pushes updates, which change the sensitive topics boundaries, which has the net effect of rewriting the personality, overnight, of a bot people spent substantial amounts of time getting to know.<p>We live in crazy times.<p>(DISCLAIMER for addiction-sensitive readers: maybe don&#x27;t download an intimate AI chatbot? Your time would probably be better invested with human friends)</text></comment> | <story><title>Tamagotchi Connection</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi_Connection</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nonrandomstring</author><text>Tamagotchi are an ingenious psychological and social gambit, paving
the way for smartphones. An electronic dependent, halfway between a
doll and a game that hooks into the formative maternal and caring
instincts of a child, almost 20 years before the modern smartphone
(1996 -&gt; 2016). Don&#x27;t feed it? It dies. Fail to socialise it? It gets
lonely for friends. B.J Fogg eat your heart out!<p>Now we grew up into mums and dads with adult Tamagotchi, always hungry
for a battery charge, requiring constant attention, even distracting
us from our real children.<p>This is one of the lesser seen dangers of AI in personal tech. Not
that it will become a dominating , directing force, but that it will
become something so deeply needy. Something in which we indulge all
our affections instead of with real people.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lynx23</author><text>The only &quot;danger&quot; with Tamagochi and friends is that some humans are so stupid that they can&#x27;t get their priorities right. However, that &quot;danger&quot; easily transfers to something else. Taking away the &quot;sharp edges&quot; is no solution to stupidity, at least not for adults.</text></comment> |
12,814,580 | 12,813,992 | 1 | 2 | 12,813,633 | train | <story><title>Pre-Safe Sound: Playing ‘pink noise’ in the split second before impact (2015)</title><url>https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/next/connectivity/pre-safe-sound-playing-pink-noise-in-the-split-second-before-impact/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ComputerGuru</author><text>This is a comment from Reddit on the same [0]; though I cannot vouch for its veracity, I found it interesting nonetheless:<p>Former Benz master tech here.<p>I&#x27;ve spent a good bit of time diving into the nitty gritty of these systems.<p>It uses all of the vehicle sensors to determine crash logic.<p>You want to fire the pretensioners before the airbags if at all possible. This locks the occupants in a much more secure and predictable psition.<p>Accelerometers can determine if something like a rollover is in progress.<p>Heavy braking + high speed + sudden activation of the parking sensors indicates a crash before physical contact happens.<p>It can use the radar on distronic equipped cars to predict a crash.<p>If the vehicle is in a slide, and a sudden yaw correction happens, this means a collision has occurred, even if the airbag sensors haven&#x27;t been triggered. This is useful because the airbag sensors are only good at detecting force in one dimension.<p>It&#x27;s even possible for the vehicle to determine to fire the pretensioners but no airbags based on occupant size and weight (determined through seat&#x2F;steering wheel position and capacitive mats in the seats) and impact vectors.<p>It will even do things like full field the alternator up to 18+ volts to slam the windows shut super fast in the event of a rollover.<p>The actual detection logic fills a 4&quot; thick book.<p>It&#x27;s a big reason those cars are so damn expensive.<p>Mercedes doesn&#x27;t fuck around with safety.<p>If I had to be in a wreck, it would be in an S class. Hands down.<p>0: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;todayilearned&#x2F;comments&#x2F;59qhaw&#x2F;til_new_mercedesbenz_cars_will_play_a_short_blast&#x2F;d9avtav" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;todayilearned&#x2F;comments&#x2F;59qhaw&#x2F;til_ne...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Pre-Safe Sound: Playing ‘pink noise’ in the split second before impact (2015)</title><url>https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/next/connectivity/pre-safe-sound-playing-pink-noise-in-the-split-second-before-impact/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>codeulike</author><text>The interesting bit:<p><i>If an impending collision is detected that would be expected to produce a loud crash, the vehicle’s sound system plays a short interference signal. This causes the stapedius muscle in the ears to contract, which for a split second changes the link between the eardrum and the inner ear and so better protects it against high acoustic pressures. Most importantly, the reflex reduces the damage to hearing.</i></text></comment> |
28,874,985 | 28,874,555 | 1 | 3 | 28,873,956 | train | <story><title>Remote OK Open Startup</title><url>https://remoteok.io/open</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>pieterhg</author><text>Remote OK Founder Pieter here, thanks for submitting this and I hope everyone enjoys seeing it.<p>All of this is possible because I&#x27;ve been a HN reader since 2010 and was inspired by all of you and especially @patio11 on here to bootstrap my own things and do it VERY publicly. My entire marketing strategy is just sharing all my ups and downs, instead of paying for ads. A lot like @patio11 did in his blog posts.<p>This &#x2F;open page is just another part of that besides my incessant tweeting about every little feature I built for years at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;levelsio" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;levelsio</a>.<p>I still can&#x27;t understand it&#x27;s over $1M&#x2F;y, it&#x27;s an insane number for me and I think I would have never believed I&#x27;d ever get there if you told me years ago. COVID had a lot do with making remote work suddenly big and my site benefits from that a lot.<p>Thank you Hacker News!<p>P.S. This wouldn&#x27;t be possible without my server guy @daniellockyer, who has helped keep my VPS up for years.<p>P.S.2. I donate 5% of all revenue to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stripe.com&#x2F;climate" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stripe.com&#x2F;climate</a>, with about $75,000&#x2F;y being donated now.</text></comment> | <story><title>Remote OK Open Startup</title><url>https://remoteok.io/open</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>satvikpendem</author><text>Might want to look at Pieter Levels&#x27; open revenue for NomadList, he created both these sites: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nomadlist.com&#x2F;open" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nomadlist.com&#x2F;open</a><p>I believe he&#x27;s pulling in ~2 million USD ARR with both combined. When I asked him about both ventures on the NomadList Slack group, he said that while NomadList originally made more money, RemoteOK started to make a lot more simply because it&#x27;s B2B while NomadList is B2C. The difference between companies and individuals paying for stuff is vast. So he said to target B2B for startups in general.</text></comment> |
17,556,896 | 17,555,563 | 1 | 2 | 17,554,902 | train | <story><title>MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber</title><url>https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/17/core-i9-chip-macbook-pro-throttling/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wukerplank</author><text>In all fairness: If you sell a &gt;3000€ laptop, people should expect to get the full value out of it. Maybe it&#x27;s hard to cool CPUs in thin laptops. But then don&#x27;t let people pay for expensive upgrades that have no performance benefit.</text></item><item><author>slantyyz</author><text>In fairness, Lee criticized the Dell XPS 15&#x27;s thermals in a video a couple of days ago. Of course, he also posted a video last week about how he was starting to hate Apple products.<p>If you watch a lot of his videos, you&#x27;ll notice that he almost always talks about thermals, so it&#x27;s not surprising to see him focus on that aspect of the MBP.</text></item><item><author>lebrad</author><text>Dave Lee&#x27;s youtube video is a withering takedown, presented dispassionately.<p>His argument is such a slam dunk that the article concludes with stunned disbelief, speculating that maybe there&#x27;s &quot;something wrong with the MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip that Lee received&quot;.<p>Yes there&#x27;s something wrong with it, that was the exact point of his video. Do people really think he just got a lemon?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>whywhywhywhy</author><text>Seems like it&#x27;s hard to cool GPUs in desktops too if you&#x27;re Apple<p>&gt;their maximum FP32 compute performance is 11 TFLOPS (which points to around 1340 MHz clock-rate for the Vega 64) and their peak memory bandwidth is 400 GB&#x2F;s (indicating about 1600 MT&#x2F;s memory speed), which is slower when compared to the Radeon RX Vega cards for desktops. The main reasons why Apple downlocks its GPUs are of course power consumption and heat dissipation
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.anandtech.com&#x2F;show&#x2F;12152&#x2F;apple-starts-imac-pro-sales-on-dec-14" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.anandtech.com&#x2F;show&#x2F;12152&#x2F;apple-starts-imac-pro-s...</a><p>Sad to see that this is becoming a recurring theme from Apple&#x27;s pro line.</text></comment> | <story><title>MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber</title><url>https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/17/core-i9-chip-macbook-pro-throttling/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wukerplank</author><text>In all fairness: If you sell a &gt;3000€ laptop, people should expect to get the full value out of it. Maybe it&#x27;s hard to cool CPUs in thin laptops. But then don&#x27;t let people pay for expensive upgrades that have no performance benefit.</text></item><item><author>slantyyz</author><text>In fairness, Lee criticized the Dell XPS 15&#x27;s thermals in a video a couple of days ago. Of course, he also posted a video last week about how he was starting to hate Apple products.<p>If you watch a lot of his videos, you&#x27;ll notice that he almost always talks about thermals, so it&#x27;s not surprising to see him focus on that aspect of the MBP.</text></item><item><author>lebrad</author><text>Dave Lee&#x27;s youtube video is a withering takedown, presented dispassionately.<p>His argument is such a slam dunk that the article concludes with stunned disbelief, speculating that maybe there&#x27;s &quot;something wrong with the MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip that Lee received&quot;.<p>Yes there&#x27;s something wrong with it, that was the exact point of his video. Do people really think he just got a lemon?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vbezhenar</author><text>It depends on workload. If I&#x27;m typing code for a minute and then spending few seconds compiling and launching it, it won&#x27;t trigger throttling, but reducing each compilation from 3 seconds to 2 seconds is certainly a benefit.</text></comment> |
12,868,441 | 12,867,794 | 1 | 3 | 12,863,565 | train | <story><title>Browsers, not apps, are the future of mobile</title><url>https://blog.intercom.com/browsers-not-apps-are-the-future-of-mobile/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TuringTest</author><text>Wait until mobile OSes start building a native presentation layer built on WebAssembly.<p>Apple already tried that approach with the iPhone one. It failed because the technology wasn&#x27;t mature, but there have been nothing but advances since then.<p>The web is a more flexible and portable platform, so the economic incentives will always be there. And while native toolkits are still based on 1970&#x27;s lab research, the web as a platform benefits from mainstream usage by the whole world. At some point, the new tech will overcome and replace the old approach. The gap is getting smaller every day even if the old approach has decades of advantage, and all major tech providers are pushing for it.</text></item><item><author>Arainach</author><text>This comes up from time to time and I still don&#x27;t see it. The idea of packaged web apps and web sites is as old as the smartphone (and older on some platforms). Even today, I can tell what experience on my devices are packaged web apps and I don&#x27;t enjoy them. UI elements don&#x27;t look right, navigation elements don&#x27;t behave properly, keyboard shortcuts are wrong. Web apps can be sufficient for some scenarios, but they don&#x27;t lack the magical feeling of native apps.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wangchow</author><text>With the security sandbox of the browser functionality is inherently limited (by design) compared to native apps which have less-limiting restrictions.<p>Security and usability are inversely proportional and the browser needs that security more than anything else.<p>That being said, it&#x27;s great to see the innovation in the web space. But it will always be limited to specific application domains and the standards move slowly</text></comment> | <story><title>Browsers, not apps, are the future of mobile</title><url>https://blog.intercom.com/browsers-not-apps-are-the-future-of-mobile/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TuringTest</author><text>Wait until mobile OSes start building a native presentation layer built on WebAssembly.<p>Apple already tried that approach with the iPhone one. It failed because the technology wasn&#x27;t mature, but there have been nothing but advances since then.<p>The web is a more flexible and portable platform, so the economic incentives will always be there. And while native toolkits are still based on 1970&#x27;s lab research, the web as a platform benefits from mainstream usage by the whole world. At some point, the new tech will overcome and replace the old approach. The gap is getting smaller every day even if the old approach has decades of advantage, and all major tech providers are pushing for it.</text></item><item><author>Arainach</author><text>This comes up from time to time and I still don&#x27;t see it. The idea of packaged web apps and web sites is as old as the smartphone (and older on some platforms). Even today, I can tell what experience on my devices are packaged web apps and I don&#x27;t enjoy them. UI elements don&#x27;t look right, navigation elements don&#x27;t behave properly, keyboard shortcuts are wrong. Web apps can be sufficient for some scenarios, but they don&#x27;t lack the magical feeling of native apps.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>marcosdumay</author><text>XUL again?<p>If it&#x27;s more convenient to Google and Apple, they&#x27;ll push for it, and we can only adapt.<p>But don&#x27;t expect developers to ask for it. As it happens with those things, each platform will have their own, incompatible toolkits, and programming for them will not be much different than native programming.</text></comment> |
37,822,501 | 37,822,188 | 1 | 2 | 37,819,566 | train | <story><title>ZeroMQ – Relicense from LGPL3 and exceptions to MPL 2.0</title><url>https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq/pull/4555</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sneak</author><text>* an organization that doesn’t believe in software freedoms<p>If you believe in software freedoms, then there will never be any reason to need to relicense, nor would you want to.<p>Free software is an ideology, like human rights. You can’t use it only sometimes and be said to support it.</text></item><item><author>loeg</author><text>Conversely, as an organization, it makes sense to never accept changes without a CLA.</text></item><item><author>sneak</author><text>This is why you should never sign a CLA; it allows later relicensing of your work to nonfree licenses.<p>Linux doesn’t have a CLA, and it’s the most popular operating system in the world.</text></item><item><author>taway1237</author><text>They legally have to ask every contributor. The exception&#x2F;loophole used by big companies (but also FSF for example) is that every contributor had to sign a CLA where they legally reassign ownership of their code to the project owner.</text></item><item><author>cobertos</author><text>Is it very common to contact _every_ maintainer and back out changes from ones who don&#x27;t respond for license changes?<p>I feel like I&#x27;ve heard of many larger companies doing relicenses on their open source without this kind of effort.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JoshuaRogers</author><text>&gt; If you believe in software freedoms, then there will never be any reason to need to relicense, nor would you want to.<p>The Tivo-ization process of the 90s shows that while this might be frequently true, it isn’t without exception. From a practical standpoint, continuing to provide for user freedom would have been best accomplished (personal opinion) if many projects had been able to move to a more AGPL style license.</text></comment> | <story><title>ZeroMQ – Relicense from LGPL3 and exceptions to MPL 2.0</title><url>https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq/pull/4555</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sneak</author><text>* an organization that doesn’t believe in software freedoms<p>If you believe in software freedoms, then there will never be any reason to need to relicense, nor would you want to.<p>Free software is an ideology, like human rights. You can’t use it only sometimes and be said to support it.</text></item><item><author>loeg</author><text>Conversely, as an organization, it makes sense to never accept changes without a CLA.</text></item><item><author>sneak</author><text>This is why you should never sign a CLA; it allows later relicensing of your work to nonfree licenses.<p>Linux doesn’t have a CLA, and it’s the most popular operating system in the world.</text></item><item><author>taway1237</author><text>They legally have to ask every contributor. The exception&#x2F;loophole used by big companies (but also FSF for example) is that every contributor had to sign a CLA where they legally reassign ownership of their code to the project owner.</text></item><item><author>cobertos</author><text>Is it very common to contact _every_ maintainer and back out changes from ones who don&#x27;t respond for license changes?<p>I feel like I&#x27;ve heard of many larger companies doing relicenses on their open source without this kind of effort.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>loeg</author><text>Yeah. I think in your dichotomy, most of the world does not believe in software freedoms.</text></comment> |
16,255,578 | 16,255,565 | 1 | 2 | 16,255,251 | train | <story><title>Qubes Air: Generalizing the Qubes Architecture</title><url>https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2018/01/22/qubes-air/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>weinzierl</author><text>I‘m a heavy user of Qubes OS. The “Convert to Tusted PDF” feature is something I use almost daily.<p>My use case is examining, cleaning and possibly distributing application letters and CVs. If you have to read job application letters, the advice to just open files from people you trust, just doesn’t work. The amount of untargeted malware we receive through this channel is considerable. We had targeted attacks too.<p>I’ve known about Qubes OS for a long time but interestingly the advice to use it for all processing of application letters didn’t come from my tech circles but from a recruiter.<p>Given the strict laws about data retention in my jurisdiction (Germany) a cloud solution (short of homomorphic encryption) probably isn’t going to work for me. The idea of using discrete devices sounds interesting though.</text></comment> | <story><title>Qubes Air: Generalizing the Qubes Architecture</title><url>https://www.qubes-os.org/news/2018/01/22/qubes-air/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>xvilka</author><text>Wonder about their progress of integration[1] with ReactOS.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;QubesOS&#x2F;qubes-issues&#x2F;issues&#x2F;2809" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;QubesOS&#x2F;qubes-issues&#x2F;issues&#x2F;2809</a></text></comment> |
30,493,453 | 30,493,462 | 1 | 3 | 30,492,088 | train | <story><title>Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/very-probable-that-swiss-will-freeze-russian-assets-president-2022-02-27/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>aemreunal</author><text><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.fo&#x2F;baj7M" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.fo&#x2F;baj7M</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Neutral Swiss poised to freeze Russian assets – president</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/very-probable-that-swiss-will-freeze-russian-assets-president-2022-02-27/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>monkeybutton</author><text>What I find interesting is that the sanctions of Russia and support of Ukraine is accelerating faster and faster every day. Had the initial plan of decapitating the government and installing a puppet who signs a peace agreement with Russia worked, I doubt we&#x27;d be seeing the same level of support as now. Apparently the EU is now giving them jets in addition to all the small arms, fuel and anti-tank weapons. With all the economic sanctions it seems like they want to collapse the Russian economy and instigate regime change from the inside. Putin made a risky bet by attacking Ukraine, but the EU collapsing Russia with all their nukes still hanging around and hoping the next government in charge is more stable is a way more risky bet.</text></comment> |
26,029,390 | 26,028,548 | 1 | 2 | 26,012,459 | train | <story><title>Where's the fastest place to put my server? How much does it matter?</title><url>http://calpaterson.com/latency.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rsync</author><text>Many years ago (2006 and 2009, respectively) I had to choose European and Asian locations for rsync.net storage arrays.<p>My primary, overriding criteria in choosing locations was <i>what would be the coolest, most interesting place to visit for installs and maintenance</i>.<p>I chose Zurich and Hong Kong.<p>Measured results have exceeded my initial models.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Johnny555</author><text>The cloud ruined that fringe benefit, I used to manage servers in London and got to visit them quarterly. But now I manage servers all over the world, and it&#x27;s impossible to see them physically, even the ones that are hosted nearby.<p>Though all things considered, I don&#x27;t really miss sitting inside a cold, loud datacenter or standing in front of a tiny KVM monitor for hours just to load CD&#x27;s to do a software upgrade.</text></comment> | <story><title>Where's the fastest place to put my server? How much does it matter?</title><url>http://calpaterson.com/latency.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rsync</author><text>Many years ago (2006 and 2009, respectively) I had to choose European and Asian locations for rsync.net storage arrays.<p>My primary, overriding criteria in choosing locations was <i>what would be the coolest, most interesting place to visit for installs and maintenance</i>.<p>I chose Zurich and Hong Kong.<p>Measured results have exceeded my initial models.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Hallucinaut</author><text>This is one of those comments that&#x27;s difficult to interpret the meaning of... until you read the commenter&#x27;s name.<p>(Love your work)</text></comment> |
38,133,224 | 38,125,149 | 1 | 2 | 38,121,199 | train | <story><title>Auto industry executives admit electric vehicle plans are in jeopardy</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aaronbrethorst</author><text>I don&#x27;t want some ridiculous 3 ton electric truck that needs a 131 kWh battery.<p>I want an adorable, tiny EV Mitsubishi Delica for $13,000 new. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mitsubishi-motors.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;newsrelease&#x2F;2023&#x2F;detail1422.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mitsubishi-motors.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;newsrelease&#x2F;2023&#x2F;detail...</a><p>Or this adorable, tiny EV SUV for about the same price: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thedrive.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;gms-tiny-electric-pickup-is-an-open-top-truck-meant-for-china" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thedrive.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;gms-tiny-electric-pickup-is-an...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JeremyNT</author><text>I would by a car like the ID.3 tomorrow, but they won&#x27;t sell it in the US.<p>The US market is so weird. Mostly dominated by very expensive, very large vehicles. Yet, it seems like the kind of consumer who might want a EV is <i>also</i> the kind of consumer who would want a smaller vehicle, which would be far more practical. I guess the Bolt (in limbo, with a new design maybe coming?) and Nissan Leaf are pretty much it right now.<p>I think automakers just assume &quot;US consumers want big, expensive cars&quot; and copy&#x2F;pasted that over to their EV offerings, while the big untapped EV market is probably for more practical people who would gladly drive a smaller, more efficient, cheaper vehicle.</text></comment> | <story><title>Auto industry executives admit electric vehicle plans are in jeopardy</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-executives-coming-clean-evs-arent-working-2023-10</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>aaronbrethorst</author><text>I don&#x27;t want some ridiculous 3 ton electric truck that needs a 131 kWh battery.<p>I want an adorable, tiny EV Mitsubishi Delica for $13,000 new. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mitsubishi-motors.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;newsrelease&#x2F;2023&#x2F;detail1422.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mitsubishi-motors.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;newsrelease&#x2F;2023&#x2F;detail...</a><p>Or this adorable, tiny EV SUV for about the same price: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thedrive.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;gms-tiny-electric-pickup-is-an-open-top-truck-meant-for-china" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thedrive.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;gms-tiny-electric-pickup-is-an...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>topspin</author><text>&quot;3 ton electric truck&quot;<p>Elon stated that Cybertruck will weigh about 7000 lbs. That&#x27;s 3.5 tons.<p>That&#x27;s the same mass as an F-350 DRW (dual rear wheel) loaded with options.<p>Seriously heavy. I&#x27;m not anti heavy vehicles or anything; I have a 3&#x2F;4 ton truck myself (~5200 lbs.) I just think it&#x27;s eye opening just how heavy these EVs are.</text></comment> |
15,273,301 | 15,269,009 | 1 | 2 | 15,267,576 | train | <story><title>Lenovo Accidentally Leaks an Image of Its ‘Retro Thinkpad’</title><url>http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/09/retro-thinkpad-image-2017</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ggreer</author><text>&gt; Where oh where is the x60 of today?<p>It&#x27;s an ordeal, but it&#x27;s possible to have one. This[1] is my primary computer. It&#x27;s an X61 chassis with a Core i7-5600U, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. The screen is a 12&quot; 1400x1050 IPS LCD (matte, not glossy). It&#x27;s my favorite laptop.<p>Putting it together took months. There&#x27;s a group of enthusiasts in China called 51nb that make modern internals for old ThinkPad chassis[2]. I ordered a barebones chassis from them in March and received it in June. After that I replaced the LCD&#x27;s ancient CCFL backlight with an LED conversion kit[3], improving battery life and brightness.<p>If you want to know more, I wrote a blog post detailing the whole experience[4].<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;photos&#x2F;x62&#x2F;DSC_2304.JPG" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;photos&#x2F;x62&#x2F;DSC_2304.JPG</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.51nb.com&#x2F;benzhanshiye&#x2F;2017-06-08&#x2F;83668.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.51nb.com&#x2F;benzhanshiye&#x2F;2017-06-08&#x2F;83668.html</a><p>3. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;people.xiph.org&#x2F;~xiphmont&#x2F;thinkpad&#x2F;led-backlight.shtml" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;people.xiph.org&#x2F;~xiphmont&#x2F;thinkpad&#x2F;led-backlight.sht...</a><p>4. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;2017&#x2F;07&#x2F;16&#x2F;thinkpad-x62&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;2017&#x2F;07&#x2F;16&#x2F;thinkpad-x62&#x2F;</a></text></item><item><author>nullc</author><text>Gigantic useless trackpad. Looks like no status leds. Where oh where is the x60 of today?<p>Is there some place where I can just pay them the profit margin for this laptop and have the count added to their sales figures? This laptop is an improvement, but it looks like it still has a long way to go. :(</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mncharity</author><text>Off topic, but regards &quot;VR with Eye Tracking [...] Imagine this technology being used in a VR Silent Hill or Resident Evil. You put the headset on and start playing. You see something move in your peripheral vision, but by the time your eyes have saccaded, it’s gone. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get a good look at it. With only hints and sounds to go on, your imagination fills in the rest. [] Such a game would be –without a doubt– the scariest game ever. I can’t wait to play it.&quot;[1]<p>My fuzzy recollection is there was a CAVE setup (at siggraph? some years back) which used a head-mounted backwards-facing tracking camera, and the hemisphere behind you was filled with tracking markers. So if you quickly turned your head, out of the corner of your eye... apparently it created &quot;something is behind me!&quot; creepiness.<p>There&#x27;s also a VR game prototype that mutates the world behind you when you are facing away. &quot;Wait, was that chair there before?&quot; It&#x27;s disturbing.<p>The Shadertoy Fovea detector[2] illustrates how narrow your high-res fovea is.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;14&#x2F;interesting-tech-that-is-just-around-the-corner&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;14&#x2F;interesting-tech-that-is-j...</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shadertoy.com&#x2F;view&#x2F;4dsXzM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shadertoy.com&#x2F;view&#x2F;4dsXzM</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Lenovo Accidentally Leaks an Image of Its ‘Retro Thinkpad’</title><url>http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/09/retro-thinkpad-image-2017</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ggreer</author><text>&gt; Where oh where is the x60 of today?<p>It&#x27;s an ordeal, but it&#x27;s possible to have one. This[1] is my primary computer. It&#x27;s an X61 chassis with a Core i7-5600U, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB SSD. The screen is a 12&quot; 1400x1050 IPS LCD (matte, not glossy). It&#x27;s my favorite laptop.<p>Putting it together took months. There&#x27;s a group of enthusiasts in China called 51nb that make modern internals for old ThinkPad chassis[2]. I ordered a barebones chassis from them in March and received it in June. After that I replaced the LCD&#x27;s ancient CCFL backlight with an LED conversion kit[3], improving battery life and brightness.<p>If you want to know more, I wrote a blog post detailing the whole experience[4].<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;photos&#x2F;x62&#x2F;DSC_2304.JPG" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;photos&#x2F;x62&#x2F;DSC_2304.JPG</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.51nb.com&#x2F;benzhanshiye&#x2F;2017-06-08&#x2F;83668.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.51nb.com&#x2F;benzhanshiye&#x2F;2017-06-08&#x2F;83668.html</a><p>3. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;people.xiph.org&#x2F;~xiphmont&#x2F;thinkpad&#x2F;led-backlight.shtml" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;people.xiph.org&#x2F;~xiphmont&#x2F;thinkpad&#x2F;led-backlight.sht...</a><p>4. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;2017&#x2F;07&#x2F;16&#x2F;thinkpad-x62&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;geoff.greer.fm&#x2F;2017&#x2F;07&#x2F;16&#x2F;thinkpad-x62&#x2F;</a></text></item><item><author>nullc</author><text>Gigantic useless trackpad. Looks like no status leds. Where oh where is the x60 of today?<p>Is there some place where I can just pay them the profit margin for this laptop and have the count added to their sales figures? This laptop is an improvement, but it looks like it still has a long way to go. :(</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bfuller</author><text>That is gorgeous, but I don&#x27;t think I have the dedication to go through all that.</text></comment> |
24,268,998 | 24,265,912 | 1 | 2 | 24,265,491 | train | <story><title>Journal 2.0: Mental Space for What Matters</title><url>https://blog.usejournal.com/introducing-journal-2-0-1667b4d295a</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hereme888</author><text>I downloaded and installed, but then I saw it forces me to sign up using gmail or apple only. This led me to start reading the privacy policy... you basically collect every webpage I visit, ip, how many times&#x2F;time of day, etc... and sell it to advertisers.<p>I don&#x27;t like advertisers manipulating me through their psychological research into my habits. It&#x27;s unethical.<p>If this software were offered in a way that respected my privacy, I would honestly try it. But for this reason I tend to stick to open source software. It may be much less functional and require more manual work, but it gives me peace of mind.<p>Wish you the best... just not my cup of tea.</text></comment> | <story><title>Journal 2.0: Mental Space for What Matters</title><url>https://blog.usejournal.com/introducing-journal-2-0-1667b4d295a</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>andersco</author><text>I went through a multi-step process of trying to access Journal on my phone: being redirected to desktop, checking my inbox for an invite email, going to journal.com, having to download a desktop app, signing in, and then...after all that, I am informed that Journal is invitation only. I&#x27;d suggest maybe informing users earlier in this process that the app is invitation-only.</text></comment> |
17,177,507 | 17,177,604 | 1 | 3 | 17,177,241 | train | <story><title>Microsoft .Net Core telemetry is not opt-in</title><url>https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/3093#issuecomment-392663561</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dnomad</author><text>It boggles the mind that a bunch of very smart people at Microsoft thought this was a good idea. Say what you will about Oracle but Java has never been malware that continuously spies on users. Unfortunately the GDPR explicitly allows this kind of IoT-style ubiquitous anonymized monitoring: as long as the information cannot be tied back to an individual person (meaning no IP addresses but GUIDs are fine) and the business can claim a legitimate business interest they&#x27;re likely to get away with it. This sort of ubiquitous monitoring is only going to get more popular. In Hong Kong we&#x27;re seeing new Condo apartments that have full-fledged &quot;internal sensor grids&quot; a la Star Trek (as it was described to me). In theory though the data collection firm (which is not the same firm that owns the building) has no way of correlating it back to a specific person&#x2F;apartment number.</text></comment> | <story><title>Microsoft .Net Core telemetry is not opt-in</title><url>https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/3093#issuecomment-392663561</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>yummybear</author><text>.NET Core does not &quot;violate&quot; GDPR any more than Google Analytics does, or any other system that receives data. It&#x27;s up to the data controller to ensure that no personal data is sent, which is done by setting the environment variable DOTNET_CLI_TELEMETRY_OPTOUT.<p>There are fair arguments against the nature of opt-in telemetry, but saying &quot;they violate GDPR&quot; is just hyperbole, imo.</text></comment> |
15,832,651 | 15,832,545 | 1 | 3 | 15,831,668 | train | <story><title>Incremental Backups Using GNU Tar and S3</title><url>https://ops.tips/blog/incremental-backup-linux/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rsync</author><text>If you&#x27;re intrigued by using basic unix primitives for tasks like this you&#x27;d probably also be intrigued by a cloud storage product that <i>was built to act like a unix primitive</i>.[1][2]<p>If you&#x27;re interested in point-in-time snapshots, you&#x27;re probably also intrigued by our ZFS platform that gives you day&#x2F;week&#x2F;month&#x2F;quarter&#x2F;year snapshots that you don&#x27;t have to configure or maintain - you just do a &quot;dumb&quot; rsync (or whatever) to us and the snapshots just appear.<p>If you&#x27;re interested in <i>encrypted backups</i> you should look into the &#x27;borg backup&#x27; tool which has become the de facto standard for remote, encrypted, changes-only-upload backups.[3][4]<p>Finally, if S3 pricing is important, you should email us about our &quot;HN Readers&#x27;&quot; discount.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rsync.net" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rsync.net</a><p>[2] Examples: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rsync.net&#x2F;resources&#x2F;howto&#x2F;remote_commands.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rsync.net&#x2F;resources&#x2F;howto&#x2F;remote_commands.html</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stavros.io&#x2F;posts&#x2F;holy-grail-backups&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stavros.io&#x2F;posts&#x2F;holy-grail-backups&#x2F;</a><p>[4] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;rsync.net&#x2F;products&#x2F;attic.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;rsync.net&#x2F;products&#x2F;attic.html</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Incremental Backups Using GNU Tar and S3</title><url>https://ops.tips/blog/incremental-backup-linux/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>funkaster</author><text>I used to have a &quot;poor man&#x27;s time machine&quot; system based on rsync + hard links to files that didn&#x27;t change with new backups. Essentially it was the same concept than time machine. Of course you couldn&#x27;t upload a single &quot;snapshot&quot; because tar wouldn&#x27;t know what&#x27;s a hard link. One advantage of using rsync is that you can also keep track of things you delete.<p>Today I&#x27;m using zfs with real snapshots. For systems with no zfs support (my wife&#x27;s iMac for instance), I have a zfs fs that those systems rsync to, after the rsync is done I create a snapshot. All scripted. The snapshots can be stored in another server for an additional layer of backup, or incrementally send them to s3 if you want.</text></comment> |
1,702,465 | 1,702,467 | 1 | 3 | 1,702,096 | train | <story><title>Coding Horror: YouTube vs. Fair Use</title><url>http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/youtube-vs-fair-use.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bl4k</author><text>The more interesting next step is that the matching is being used to send advertising revenue to the copyright owners. So instead of taking down your video, the copyright owner can opt to leave it up and collect on the ad dollars.<p>The recent example of this was the clip from Mad Men about the carousel (if you haven't seen it, look it up). Uploaded by an ordinary user but AMC left it up and instead collected on the ad revenue.<p>So the tech isn't just being used to prevent any clips from reaching the web - it is actually enabling copyrighted content to be shared and quoted on the web with a sustainable business model - a whole point that Jeff missed.<p>The Economist wrote about this a while ago.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brown9-2</author><text>And everyone wins in this scenario, don't they? The content owner collects revenue, and the general public gets to view the video they were (probably) searching for.</text></comment> | <story><title>Coding Horror: YouTube vs. Fair Use</title><url>http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/09/youtube-vs-fair-use.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bl4k</author><text>The more interesting next step is that the matching is being used to send advertising revenue to the copyright owners. So instead of taking down your video, the copyright owner can opt to leave it up and collect on the ad dollars.<p>The recent example of this was the clip from Mad Men about the carousel (if you haven't seen it, look it up). Uploaded by an ordinary user but AMC left it up and instead collected on the ad revenue.<p>So the tech isn't just being used to prevent any clips from reaching the web - it is actually enabling copyrighted content to be shared and quoted on the web with a sustainable business model - a whole point that Jeff missed.<p>The Economist wrote about this a while ago.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Splines</author><text>Isn't this the "Monetize" option that copyright holders can exercise on a video that matches their own in the content id system?<p>Or do you mean something else?</text></comment> |
34,071,698 | 34,070,100 | 1 | 3 | 34,066,824 | train | <story><title>Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas</title><url>https://obsidian.md/canvas</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>afturner</author><text>The local first approach is the primary reason I use Obsidian. I trust that I can _depend_ on Obsidian because of this.<p>On the other hand, this has also caused some headaches around using it on mobile.. but so far this has been a worthwhile tradeoff. Thanks for all the hard work!</text></item><item><author>kepano</author><text>Obsidian Canvas uses a new JSON-based file format that we have open-sourced under MIT license. You can see the spec here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;obsidianmd&#x2F;obsidian-api&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;canvas.d.ts">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;obsidianmd&#x2F;obsidian-api&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;canva...</a><p>Just like all other files in Obsidian, canvas files are your own and local to your device. You&#x27;re still linking to your own Markdown files which are just as future-proof as ever.<p>We decided to create the .canvas format because there wasn&#x27;t any pre-existing canvas-type format we could find that fit our priorities around longevity, readability, interoperability and extensibility.<p>The .canvas format is designed to be as easy to parse as possible. We&#x27;ve already seen a few plugins take advantage of it, and we hope that more tools will become available that can use the .canvas format.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gavi</author><text>I use iCloud Drive as a vault location. The trick is to create it first on the Mobile app and then use the desktop app later to point to that vault.<p>If you are transferring from desktop to mobile, make sure the .obsidian folder inside the vault is copied also</text></comment> | <story><title>Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas</title><url>https://obsidian.md/canvas</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>afturner</author><text>The local first approach is the primary reason I use Obsidian. I trust that I can _depend_ on Obsidian because of this.<p>On the other hand, this has also caused some headaches around using it on mobile.. but so far this has been a worthwhile tradeoff. Thanks for all the hard work!</text></item><item><author>kepano</author><text>Obsidian Canvas uses a new JSON-based file format that we have open-sourced under MIT license. You can see the spec here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;obsidianmd&#x2F;obsidian-api&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;canvas.d.ts">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;obsidianmd&#x2F;obsidian-api&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;canva...</a><p>Just like all other files in Obsidian, canvas files are your own and local to your device. You&#x27;re still linking to your own Markdown files which are just as future-proof as ever.<p>We decided to create the .canvas format because there wasn&#x27;t any pre-existing canvas-type format we could find that fit our priorities around longevity, readability, interoperability and extensibility.<p>The .canvas format is designed to be as easy to parse as possible. We&#x27;ve already seen a few plugins take advantage of it, and we hope that more tools will become available that can use the .canvas format.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bachmeier</author><text>Obsidian Sync is by no means cheap, but I&#x27;ve never used a better syncing service. I&#x27;m on my second year and can&#x27;t think of a single issue I&#x27;ve had across laptops, desktops, an Android phone, and a Chromebook.</text></comment> |
4,264,744 | 4,264,477 | 1 | 2 | 4,264,348 | train | <story><title>Shell social media oil spill a 'coordinated online assassination'</title><url>http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/shell-social-media-oil-spill-a-coordinated-online-assassination-20120719-22bpe.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hcurtiss</author><text>What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob. Maybe this has gone on forever, but seeing it happen in real time on sites like Reddit is tripping me out. While I think my BS filter is more sophisticated than most, on the morning it was released I sent the Shell party video to a colleague to ask if he was there not realizing it was a spoof. Turns out he happened to know there was no such party.<p>I feel like the internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, and subtly so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rickmb</author><text>If you are shocked by the "blatant manipulation of the mob", the advertising you see all around you every day, everywhere must put you in a permanent state of catatonia.<p>How come the combination of internet and activism is suddenly "dangerous", and not the pervasive and misleading propaganda we've been subjected to for generations?<p>Shell can no longer drown out the opposition with millions of dollars and <i>now</i> it's a problem?</text></comment> | <story><title>Shell social media oil spill a 'coordinated online assassination'</title><url>http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/shell-social-media-oil-spill-a-coordinated-online-assassination-20120719-22bpe.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hcurtiss</author><text>What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob. Maybe this has gone on forever, but seeing it happen in real time on sites like Reddit is tripping me out. While I think my BS filter is more sophisticated than most, on the morning it was released I sent the Shell party video to a colleague to ask if he was there not realizing it was a spoof. Turns out he happened to know there was no such party.<p>I feel like the internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, and subtly so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>k3n</author><text>I'd pity them save for the fact that big oil has been 'blatantly manipulating the mob' for decades now, at the detriment to our environment.<p>The dangers of the mob are very real though, as many people's lives have been ruined (or nearly ruined) through some misinformation that goes viral.</text></comment> |
38,701,004 | 38,699,414 | 1 | 3 | 38,698,707 | train | <story><title>Google agrees to pay $700M in antitrust settlement reached with states</title><url>https://apnews.com/article/google-android-play-store-apps-antitrust-settlement-e4e2f422baa846c66deac90c7866c5fd</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koolba</author><text>&gt; Eligible consumers will receive at least $2, according to the settlement, and may get additional payments based on their spending on the Play store between Aug. 16, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2023.<p>I bet they give it as a play store credit. How else would they actually distribute $2 to so many people without costing a huge percentage of the payout?<p>&gt; Like Apple does in its iPhone app store, Google collects commissions ranging from 15% to 30% on in-app purchases — fees that state attorneys general contended drove prices higher than they would have been had there been an open market for payment processing.<p>The real lesson here is to not let anyone get a foot in the door of your walled garden.<p>&gt; Google also agreed to make other changes designed to make it even easier for consumers to download and install Android apps from other outlets besides its Play Store for the next five years. It will refrain from issuing as many security warnings, or “scare screens,” when alternative choices are being used.<p>The States that asked for this are idiots. The real world consequence of this won’t be improved competition. It will be grandma getting fleeced.<p>It’s not that it should be possible, but making it not “scary” is not a good idea for the reality we live in.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>turquoisevar</author><text>&gt; It will be grandma getting fleeced.<p>Not just grandma. We need to move away from the idea that just a handful of digital illiterate seniors will get screwed.<p>Android has been the main target for malware for a while now.<p>Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Report in 2021[0] reported that Android makes up more than half of all the infected systems, in the recent 2023 report this had dipped to 49%[1]. But as they’ve done in prior reports, this year they again highlight that most Android malware is a trojanized version of legitimate apps distributed via alternative means:<p>&gt; Android based devices are not inherently insecure. However, most smartphone malware is distributed as trojanized applications and since Android users can load application from just about anywhere, it’s much easier to trick them into installing applications that are infected with malware. Android users can protect themselves by only installing applications from secure app stores like Google Play and installing a mobile anti-virus product on their device.<p>0: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pages.nokia.com&#x2F;T006US-Threat-Intelligence-Report-2021.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pages.nokia.com&#x2F;T006US-Threat-Intelligence-Report-20...</a><p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nokia.com&#x2F;networks&#x2F;security-portfolio&#x2F;threat-intelligence-report&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nokia.com&#x2F;networks&#x2F;security-portfolio&#x2F;threat-int...</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Google agrees to pay $700M in antitrust settlement reached with states</title><url>https://apnews.com/article/google-android-play-store-apps-antitrust-settlement-e4e2f422baa846c66deac90c7866c5fd</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koolba</author><text>&gt; Eligible consumers will receive at least $2, according to the settlement, and may get additional payments based on their spending on the Play store between Aug. 16, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2023.<p>I bet they give it as a play store credit. How else would they actually distribute $2 to so many people without costing a huge percentage of the payout?<p>&gt; Like Apple does in its iPhone app store, Google collects commissions ranging from 15% to 30% on in-app purchases — fees that state attorneys general contended drove prices higher than they would have been had there been an open market for payment processing.<p>The real lesson here is to not let anyone get a foot in the door of your walled garden.<p>&gt; Google also agreed to make other changes designed to make it even easier for consumers to download and install Android apps from other outlets besides its Play Store for the next five years. It will refrain from issuing as many security warnings, or “scare screens,” when alternative choices are being used.<p>The States that asked for this are idiots. The real world consequence of this won’t be improved competition. It will be grandma getting fleeced.<p>It’s not that it should be possible, but making it not “scary” is not a good idea for the reality we live in.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ehsankia</author><text>Right, I think the solution to this, which already exists, is other preinstalled stores, like Samsung or Amazon stores, by OEMs. What should probably be illegal is making deals forcing OEMs to have exclusive app store deals?<p>That being said, that&#x27;s also a shitty situation for consumers, as having many or different app stores is confusing and just leads to the very fragmentation people have complain about on Android for a decade.<p>This is the real duality of the situation. On the one hand, people criticize Android for not being as cohesive an experience as iOS, but on the other hand, anything Google does to make it more cohesive will be seen as anti-competitive. Same with security.</text></comment> |
17,364,018 | 17,362,971 | 1 | 2 | 17,362,745 | train | <story><title>Improved JavaScript and WebAssembly performance in EdgeHTML 17</title><url>https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2018/06/19/improved-javascript-webassembly-performance-edgehtml-17/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>giancarlostoro</author><text>One announcement I&#x27;m waiting to hear about in all honesty is Microsoft open sourcing Edge, they don&#x27;t have to reveal Cortana specifics (though that would be fund to read through if they&#x27;d allow it) but just EdgeHTML with Chakra in a way that compiles nicely. I would love to see what would happen if they allowed the community to contribute back to Edge if it could become much more competitive as a result of them welcoming contributors.<p>A few years ago I&#x27;d sound like I&#x27;d be tripping on bathsalts but I think it could happen, just a matter of when they choose to do so.</text></comment> | <story><title>Improved JavaScript and WebAssembly performance in EdgeHTML 17</title><url>https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2018/06/19/improved-javascript-webassembly-performance-edgehtml-17/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>TheAceOfHearts</author><text>I&#x27;ve never seen a person using Edge. Does anyone here use it? Do you work at Microsoft or have a big technical investment in their technology? Do you find the lack of cross-platform support annoying, or do you primarily use a single OS?<p>These changes all look like they apply to ChakraCore, which is open source and available outside of Windows. I&#x27;d be curious to hear what kinds of use-cases people have for using Node Chakra over Node V8.</text></comment> |
2,375,892 | 2,375,790 | 1 | 2 | 2,375,656 | train | <story><title>MySQL.com compromised via (guess what?) SQL injection</title><url>http://blog.sucuri.net/2011/03/mysql-com-compromised.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jedsmith</author><text>Actual information with more details, minus zero-content blog:<p><a href="http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Mar/309?utm_source=twitterfeed&#38;utm_medium=twitter" rel="nofollow">http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Mar/309?utm_source=t...</a><p><a href="http://pastebin.com/BayvYdcP" rel="nofollow">http://pastebin.com/BayvYdcP</a></text></comment> | <story><title>MySQL.com compromised via (guess what?) SQL injection</title><url>http://blog.sucuri.net/2011/03/mysql-com-compromised.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>fmavituna</author><text>Same guys hit Sun.com via SQL Injection as well - <a href="http://tinkode27.baywords.com/sun-com-sun-mycrosystems-vulnerable-sql-injection/" rel="nofollow">http://tinkode27.baywords.com/sun-com-sun-mycrosystems-vulne...</a><p><i>Shameless self plug:</i> Netsparker ( My startup: <a href="http://www.netsparker.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.netsparker.com/</a> ) could have identified both of these vulnerabilities.</text></comment> |
12,129,049 | 12,128,788 | 1 | 2 | 12,128,410 | train | <story><title>Five million Danish ID numbers sent to Chinese firm by mistake</title><url>http://www.thelocal.dk/20160720/five-million-danish-id-numbers-sent-to-chinese-firm-by-mistake</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seszett</author><text>Let&#x27;s assume they have it.<p>What kind of interest would you say the Chinese government has in the health records of a few million Danish residents? I don&#x27;t know, maybe it&#x27;s really important, but then maybe it&#x27;s not that critical after all.</text></item><item><author>pilif</author><text><i>&gt; But again there is little to no way to figure out for sure whether the Chinese government has this information</i><p>assume they have it.</text></item><item><author>Svip</author><text>No long, I&#x27;d imagine. But again there is little to no way to figure out for sure whether the Chinese government has this information. The story really highlights the careless handling of data, because the chances of the Chinese government (or any other third part) getting access to these data is way too high.</text></item><item><author>throwanem</author><text>How long does a modern machine need to copy off the contents of a couple of CDs? Were the discs in tamper-evident packages?</text></item><item><author>Svip</author><text>Correction: SSI sent a letter containing two unencrypted CDs containing CPR-numbers and health records for 5.28 residents in Danish municipals between 2010 and 2012 to the Danish statistics agency (Statistics Denmark).<p>Post Danmark (postal service) accidentally delivered the letter to Chinese Visa Application Centre instead. When the employee responsible for receiving the letter noticed the mistake upon opening, the employee turned the letter with the two CDs to Statistics Denmark.<p>According to the employee&#x27;s story, this was done immediately. And the investigation team says they have no reason to doubt the validity of her story.<p>To sum up: The investigation team believe that the Chinese Visa Application Centre never actually saw the contents on the CDs. SSI sent the data unencrypted, and the postal service delivered the letter to the wrong recipient.<p>Edit: Changed wording from blaming the postal service.</text></item><item><author>runesoerensen</author><text>This is ridiculous. It&#x27;s not just Danish personal identification numbers, but <i>ID numbers and health records</i> for everyone who have lived in Denmark from 2010 through 2012.<p>Quick recap since it&#x27;s in Danish: A danish health authority, SSI, accidentally <i>mailed two CDs</i> containing <i>unencrypted CPR-numbers and health records for 5.28m residents</i> to the Chinese Visa Application Office.<p>The Chinese delivered the letter to the intended recipient, Statistics Denmark, another danish government authority.<p>The bubble cushioned mailer containing the CDs had been opened, but regardless the issue of course is the extremely reckless handling of very sensitive information.<p>Edit: Article reporting on this in English <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelocal.dk&#x2F;20160720&#x2F;five-million-danish-id-numbers-sent-to-chinese-firm-by-mistake" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelocal.dk&#x2F;20160720&#x2F;five-million-danish-id-numbe...</a><p>Edit 2: The specification and structure of the data that was sent with these CDs. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;christianpanton&#x2F;status&#x2F;755742230044966912" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;christianpanton&#x2F;status&#x2F;75574223004496691...</a> (also in Danish, but this seems to include almost everything; the carelessness in handling this data appears to have been surpassed only by the extent and completeness of it)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>peteretep</author><text>Hi, nice to meet you Johan! Can I get you a drink? Oh, you&#x27;re an electrician? That&#x27;s nice, I sell light fixtures.<p>...<p>Good to see you again Johan! You&#x27;ll never believe, I was down at XYZ Clinic yesterday, and they&#x27;d left your file out!! Careless right? How did you break it to your wife you had herpes? Oh, she didn&#x27;t know?! Man, sorry I mentioned it, I&#x27;ll keep that quiet for sure.<p>...<p>Man, it&#x27;s been a hard month Johan. Sales are down! Hey, you told me you worked at the DaneSecure building right? Oh you didn&#x27;t? Someone else must have told me that. But look, don&#x27;t worry. I can keep secrets!! Look could you do me a favour? I need to know what kind of light fixtures they use at DaneSecure so I can pitch to them. Could you take a look and let me know? I&#x27;d like to know what kind they are, and specifically, how many are installed on Level 7. You know we&#x27;re friends, because you know I can keep my mouth shut.<p>...<p>Johan, we have a problem!!! My boss said that because we&#x27;re Chinese-owned, you telling me about the light-fittings in a classified area is technically passing on state secrets!!! You have a lawyer right? No?! OK, here&#x27;s the plan, don&#x27;t tell anybody, and we&#x27;ll figure a way to keep us both out of jail!<p>...<p>Are you OK Johan? You look kind of pale. You haven&#x27;t been worrying about this all week have you? Oh you have? OK well don&#x27;t worry, I&#x27;ve got a solution. My boss has said he thinks he can stop our corporate lawyers reporting it, and we&#x27;ll both be fine. There&#x27;s a small catch favour he wants from us though. He needs to know the power consumption of the floor to help us tailor our pitch. Do you think you could plug this thing in to a light fixture for me? I think we&#x27;re both going to be fine...<p>...<p>Johan, I have some bad news for you? Remember I said I sold light fixtures? Well that wasn&#x27;t the whole truth...</text></comment> | <story><title>Five million Danish ID numbers sent to Chinese firm by mistake</title><url>http://www.thelocal.dk/20160720/five-million-danish-id-numbers-sent-to-chinese-firm-by-mistake</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>seszett</author><text>Let&#x27;s assume they have it.<p>What kind of interest would you say the Chinese government has in the health records of a few million Danish residents? I don&#x27;t know, maybe it&#x27;s really important, but then maybe it&#x27;s not that critical after all.</text></item><item><author>pilif</author><text><i>&gt; But again there is little to no way to figure out for sure whether the Chinese government has this information</i><p>assume they have it.</text></item><item><author>Svip</author><text>No long, I&#x27;d imagine. But again there is little to no way to figure out for sure whether the Chinese government has this information. The story really highlights the careless handling of data, because the chances of the Chinese government (or any other third part) getting access to these data is way too high.</text></item><item><author>throwanem</author><text>How long does a modern machine need to copy off the contents of a couple of CDs? Were the discs in tamper-evident packages?</text></item><item><author>Svip</author><text>Correction: SSI sent a letter containing two unencrypted CDs containing CPR-numbers and health records for 5.28 residents in Danish municipals between 2010 and 2012 to the Danish statistics agency (Statistics Denmark).<p>Post Danmark (postal service) accidentally delivered the letter to Chinese Visa Application Centre instead. When the employee responsible for receiving the letter noticed the mistake upon opening, the employee turned the letter with the two CDs to Statistics Denmark.<p>According to the employee&#x27;s story, this was done immediately. And the investigation team says they have no reason to doubt the validity of her story.<p>To sum up: The investigation team believe that the Chinese Visa Application Centre never actually saw the contents on the CDs. SSI sent the data unencrypted, and the postal service delivered the letter to the wrong recipient.<p>Edit: Changed wording from blaming the postal service.</text></item><item><author>runesoerensen</author><text>This is ridiculous. It&#x27;s not just Danish personal identification numbers, but <i>ID numbers and health records</i> for everyone who have lived in Denmark from 2010 through 2012.<p>Quick recap since it&#x27;s in Danish: A danish health authority, SSI, accidentally <i>mailed two CDs</i> containing <i>unencrypted CPR-numbers and health records for 5.28m residents</i> to the Chinese Visa Application Office.<p>The Chinese delivered the letter to the intended recipient, Statistics Denmark, another danish government authority.<p>The bubble cushioned mailer containing the CDs had been opened, but regardless the issue of course is the extremely reckless handling of very sensitive information.<p>Edit: Article reporting on this in English <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelocal.dk&#x2F;20160720&#x2F;five-million-danish-id-numbers-sent-to-chinese-firm-by-mistake" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelocal.dk&#x2F;20160720&#x2F;five-million-danish-id-numbe...</a><p>Edit 2: The specification and structure of the data that was sent with these CDs. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;christianpanton&#x2F;status&#x2F;755742230044966912" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;christianpanton&#x2F;status&#x2F;75574223004496691...</a> (also in Danish, but this seems to include almost everything; the carelessness in handling this data appears to have been surpassed only by the extent and completeness of it)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwanem</author><text>Probably none, but you don&#x27;t stay a power in the modern world by turning up your nose at any kind of information that comes your way.</text></comment> |
33,994,856 | 33,994,806 | 1 | 2 | 33,994,053 | train | <story><title>Two temperate Earth-mass planets orbiting the nearby star GJ1002</title><url>https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.07332</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>pfdietz</author><text>Red dwarf stars take up to 100 million years to settle down to the main sequence. Before that time, they are more luminous. During that period, these planets would not have been habitable and may have lost their water to space.<p>Red dwarfs also subject their planets in the putative habitable zone to much stronger stellar winds and flare radiation, which makes survival of their atmospheres problematic.</text></comment> | <story><title>Two temperate Earth-mass planets orbiting the nearby star GJ1002</title><url>https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.07332</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>akiselev</author><text>The star system in question: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gliese_1002" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gliese_1002</a><p>Only 15.8 lightyears away. Unfortunately I can’t find an estimate for the age but it’s a main sequence red dwarf with under 0.35 solar masses which implies it can burn for much longer than our sun - on the order of trillions of years: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Red_dwarf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Red_dwarf</a></text></comment> |
36,962,188 | 36,962,181 | 1 | 3 | 36,957,678 | train | <story><title>A room-temperature superconductor? New developments</title><url>https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/room-temperature-superconductor-new-developments</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>derefr</author><text>Resistance is what makes things hot, and heat is what makes dumping huge amounts of charge current into batteries a bad idea. No resistance → no heat → no need to charge with low current†.<p>Another way to say it is that, with a superconducting wire, you can make the wire as thin as you want and still pass the same amount of current through it, without melting the wire. Picture using a USB-C cable to charge your car.<p>† (There&#x27;d still be a current limit due to the heat generated by the chemical reaction that rebuilds the battery&#x27;s voltage potential... if said reaction is exothermic. Some battery chemistries are endothermic when charging!)</text></item><item><author>klysm</author><text>&gt; Batteries that don&#x27;t take any time to recharge<p>Huh? Is this actually a thing that this enables? I don&#x27;t initially see how</text></item><item><author>jtchang</author><text>The ramifications of the inflection point we are currently at is mind boggling. I had a hard time explaining this last night but we may very well be witnessing the beginnings of a technological transformation era much like when the p-n junction was invented. From the 1940s standpoint it would be hard to envision all we had today.<p>- Lossless transport of energy
- Batteries that don&#x27;t take any time to recharge
- Faster CPUs. Much faster with no heat to burn your lap.<p>Can I have my flying car now?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ninkendo</author><text>I’m not an expert on this, but I think superconducting wires have an current limit, as a current flowing creates a magnetic field which the superconductor has to repel. I read that the paper states a very low current limit for LK-99, meaning it loses superconductivity once a very modest amount of current is passed through it.</text></comment> | <story><title>A room-temperature superconductor? New developments</title><url>https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/room-temperature-superconductor-new-developments</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>derefr</author><text>Resistance is what makes things hot, and heat is what makes dumping huge amounts of charge current into batteries a bad idea. No resistance → no heat → no need to charge with low current†.<p>Another way to say it is that, with a superconducting wire, you can make the wire as thin as you want and still pass the same amount of current through it, without melting the wire. Picture using a USB-C cable to charge your car.<p>† (There&#x27;d still be a current limit due to the heat generated by the chemical reaction that rebuilds the battery&#x27;s voltage potential... if said reaction is exothermic. Some battery chemistries are endothermic when charging!)</text></item><item><author>klysm</author><text>&gt; Batteries that don&#x27;t take any time to recharge<p>Huh? Is this actually a thing that this enables? I don&#x27;t initially see how</text></item><item><author>jtchang</author><text>The ramifications of the inflection point we are currently at is mind boggling. I had a hard time explaining this last night but we may very well be witnessing the beginnings of a technological transformation era much like when the p-n junction was invented. From the 1940s standpoint it would be hard to envision all we had today.<p>- Lossless transport of energy
- Batteries that don&#x27;t take any time to recharge
- Faster CPUs. Much faster with no heat to burn your lap.<p>Can I have my flying car now?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Chabsff</author><text>Superconductors also have an inherent current limit above which they go back to having a resistance.</text></comment> |
13,849,746 | 13,849,499 | 1 | 3 | 13,848,599 | train | <story><title>Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/03/11/employees-who-decline-genetic-testing-could-face-penalities-under-proposed-bill/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryanwaggoner</author><text>In that case, my question still stands.<p>I&#x27;m asking because I frequently see this kind of climate change alarmism on forums (it&#x27;s the end of civilization, billions will die, etc) but my <i>sense</i> from an admittedly cursory reading of the estimates is that the dangers of climate change are likely to be an epic refugee crisis from coastal flooding, famine, and war. Hundreds of millions will die, and many more will see a substantial decrease in quality of life for generations.<p>So, horrible. But I think it&#x27;s wrong to say that it represents the end of civilization. For one thing, like most things, the consequences of climate change will be felt very unequally. The richest countries of the world are likely to see a much smaller impact in terms of famine and death.<p>Granted, no one knows for sure, but as someone who is NOT skeptical of the cause and effects of climate change, I am somewhat skeptical that in 100 years it&#x27;ll be as bad as many internet chicken little types seem to think.<p>I probably sound more dogmatic than I am though, so please do share some research and change my view :)</text></item><item><author>M_Grey</author><text>By &quot;end us&quot; I mean end our civilization... extinction is unlikely.</text></item><item><author>ryanwaggoner</author><text>Is there any credible research that climate change is going to &quot;end us&quot;?</text></item><item><author>M_Grey</author><text>To be fair, kids born today are pretty fucked for so many reasons. In a way, this kind of dystopian future is averted when you consider the rate of accelerating ocean warming, permafrost melting, etc. It seems likely that all problems short of that which is going to end us, sort of gets subsumed.<p>All of these social problems are in the context of a failing ecosystem that is being increasingly overtaxed. So... the kids never had a chance.</text></item><item><author>apathy</author><text>This is severely fucked. Wellness programs do little or no good but do allow employers to offer incentives for participation. This on the other hand is GATTACA level fuckery. GINA took many years to be put in place; now the proposal put forward will potentially cause people to lose health coverage or their job based on things they cannot control. Potentially their kids, too, since these idiotic &quot;wellness&quot; programs are administered by poorly regulated third parties.<p>This is very, very bad stuff.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kurthr</author><text>So over the next 85 years we&#x27;re expecting a rise of 2-10m based on current warming with the low end hoping that we maintain only 2c by the end of the century, which currently seems unlikely. Follow the link at the bottom and ask yourself what the US is going to do without Florida, or how much the dams across the Golden Gate (and Houston, New York, DC, Shanghai, London) are going to cost to prevent the inundation of Sacramento and the destruction of California farming.<p>We&#x27;re ignoring poor places like Bangladesh with a population of 200Mil (or Indonesia with 1Bil), which will likely be largely depopulated.<p>I&#x27;m now going to past text I used in an earlier comment:
_Florida is porous. You can build walls but they don&#x27;t do much. The water will rise to cover the entire peninsula. Long before that tides and storm surge will destroy all of the surface roads to coastal cities. I personally wouldn&#x27;t lend money there for longer than 30years._
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;geology.com&#x2F;sea-level-rise&#x2F;florida.shtml" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;geology.com&#x2F;sea-level-rise&#x2F;florida.shtml</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Employees who decline genetic testing could face penalties under proposed bill</title><url>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/03/11/employees-who-decline-genetic-testing-could-face-penalities-under-proposed-bill/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryanwaggoner</author><text>In that case, my question still stands.<p>I&#x27;m asking because I frequently see this kind of climate change alarmism on forums (it&#x27;s the end of civilization, billions will die, etc) but my <i>sense</i> from an admittedly cursory reading of the estimates is that the dangers of climate change are likely to be an epic refugee crisis from coastal flooding, famine, and war. Hundreds of millions will die, and many more will see a substantial decrease in quality of life for generations.<p>So, horrible. But I think it&#x27;s wrong to say that it represents the end of civilization. For one thing, like most things, the consequences of climate change will be felt very unequally. The richest countries of the world are likely to see a much smaller impact in terms of famine and death.<p>Granted, no one knows for sure, but as someone who is NOT skeptical of the cause and effects of climate change, I am somewhat skeptical that in 100 years it&#x27;ll be as bad as many internet chicken little types seem to think.<p>I probably sound more dogmatic than I am though, so please do share some research and change my view :)</text></item><item><author>M_Grey</author><text>By &quot;end us&quot; I mean end our civilization... extinction is unlikely.</text></item><item><author>ryanwaggoner</author><text>Is there any credible research that climate change is going to &quot;end us&quot;?</text></item><item><author>M_Grey</author><text>To be fair, kids born today are pretty fucked for so many reasons. In a way, this kind of dystopian future is averted when you consider the rate of accelerating ocean warming, permafrost melting, etc. It seems likely that all problems short of that which is going to end us, sort of gets subsumed.<p>All of these social problems are in the context of a failing ecosystem that is being increasingly overtaxed. So... the kids never had a chance.</text></item><item><author>apathy</author><text>This is severely fucked. Wellness programs do little or no good but do allow employers to offer incentives for participation. This on the other hand is GATTACA level fuckery. GINA took many years to be put in place; now the proposal put forward will potentially cause people to lose health coverage or their job based on things they cannot control. Potentially their kids, too, since these idiotic &quot;wellness&quot; programs are administered by poorly regulated third parties.<p>This is very, very bad stuff.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wavefunction</author><text>I would just say in response to your post: the start of Syria&#x27;s troubles are considered by some to begin with an unseasonable and sustained drought.<p>That&#x27;s one country&#x27;s population sudden injection into the rich Western world you consider to be facing limited fallout, and we&#x27;ve witnessed the results and the reactions.<p>I don&#x27;t think most people can picture the real effects of sustained and mass migration, even if you&#x27;re fortunate enough to enjoy the perks of Western life.</text></comment> |
20,824,055 | 20,823,617 | 1 | 2 | 20,822,429 | train | <story><title>Most software companies ignore user behavior</title><url>https://www.reifyworks.com/writing/2019-08-26-a-most-software-companies</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gumby</author><text>Not just software developers. I was working on a medical device and visited doctors&#x27; offices to see how and where they stored their medication (e.g. for how could we make our dispenser more prominent without getting in the way?). We also filmed our investigators holding various prototype devices to see how they picked them up, how they were balanced, how they felt in small and large hands etc.<p>Universally we were told that nobody had ever asked them anything like that before.</text></comment> | <story><title>Most software companies ignore user behavior</title><url>https://www.reifyworks.com/writing/2019-08-26-a-most-software-companies</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hinkley</author><text>Most software developers ignore user behavior.<p>It was a bit of a shock for me to figure out that much of my early success in software boiled down to a few things I was doing that nobody else was, and one of those was watching other people work and doing something - anything - more with that information than simply writing it down or complaining about it. Most of those people have been coworkers, not even customers.</text></comment> |
25,462,857 | 25,461,872 | 1 | 2 | 25,459,434 | train | <story><title>Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews</title><url>http://blog.kevmod.com/2020/12/amazon-disallows-pointing-out-paid-reviews/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jdmichal</author><text>If you&#x27;ve never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin&#x27;s Playing to Win.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw&#x2F;</a><p>Specifically the chapter &quot;Introducing... the Scrub&quot; discusses exactly this sentiment.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw-book&#x2F;introducingthe-scrub" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw-book&#x2F;introducingthe-scrub</a><p>&gt; In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.</text></item><item><author>jrockway</author><text>There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this. It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won&#x27;t actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain. Seems silly to me.<p>(Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that&#x27;s a strong argument to not do it.)</text></item><item><author>toxik</author><text>... and give away $20 gift cards to people who leave 5-star reviews!</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>Write an ebook on how to make money on Amazon, sell it for $297, and post a Show HN about it.</text></item><item><author>Buttons840</author><text>Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it.<p>EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companies trying to buy 5-star reviews are themselves exploited to the extent that people do this.<p>The cost to the original company is a lost sale, a lost product, and $20 [lost] in exchange for a legitimate looking 5-star review (from someone who is not a bot). That may well be worth it for the company, so I&#x27;m not sure this scheme would actually stop dishonest reviews, only make it worse.</text></item><item><author>ilamont</author><text>I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 &quot;gift card&quot; if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different.<p>I didn&#x27;t try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller.<p>I documented everything including photos, my exchange with Amazon customer service, and the confirmation from the seller that they would pay me $20 for a 5-star review. I did not take the money offered ... I was appalled at the situation and more than a little angry that I had been tricked by bogus reviews.<p>Here&#x27;s what happened when I reported the seller:<p><i>Me: Hi. The box for this product contained a card that says “Amazon $20 gift card” and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate? Is it really a $20 Amazon gift card?<p>Amazon: Thank you so much for your information on this, I will certainly pass it along here so that we can check this promotion or offer directly with the seller. Because I am not seeing that advertised on the item at all And would not be capable of confirming if that is a legit Amazon gift card because, I do not see that offer on the item<p>Me: So what should I do?<p>Amazon: My best suggestion would be to contact the seller directly for this through this link [redacted] So that you can confirm directly with them if this is legit or not Certainly giving away gift cards for good reviews is not professional And I have to report the seller for that<p>Me: I thought this type of offer was forbidden by Amazon’s own policies for sellers. But I will contact them using the link you sent to ask them if that’s what you recommend.</i><p>Even though the CSR reported the seller, and I confirmed with the seller through Amazon&#x27;s own communication system that they were paying $20 per 5 star review, nothing happened to the seller. The item (a webcam) is still for sale on Amazon, with thousands of additional 5-star reviews - more than 12,000 now, compared to 3,266 when I let Amazon know how they were gaming the reviews in September.<p>Once again, the good guys (in the case, customers and honest sellers) lose out while the bad guys win, with no repercussions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chowells</author><text>I&#x27;m afraid you&#x27;ve <i>deeply</i> misunderstood Playing to Win. This is quite common. Sirlin assumed a sort of community knowledge as to the context that people who came across the series later tend to lack.<p>Playing To Win is about people who refuse to learn the rules of a game. That&#x27;s not what&#x27;s happening here. What&#x27;s happening here is that people who understand the rules very well are pointing out that they have holes in them.<p>Scrub statement: &quot;throws are cheap&quot;. Informed statement: &quot;the way SF2 tick throw setups work biases the gameplay too far in favor of the player with offensive agency.&quot; You&#x27;ll note that the latter makes no mistake about the purpose of the rules and makes no judgments about players using the tools provided. Instead it focuses on system interactions and their net result. You&#x27;ll note that almost every big fighting game in the 20 years since the end of the SF2 series has reduced the power of tick throws by means of frame data or broader system changes. Players generally decided that getting the first knockdown should not have <i>that</i> much influence over a match.<p>Scrub statement: &quot;I hate people who get upset at review purchasing.&quot; Informed statement: &quot;Review purchasing makes the buying process worse for everyone by creating incentives to deceive buyers, increasing costs for sellers that purchase reviews and reducing sales to sellers who do not. It shifts the Nash equilibrium towards paying more for lower-quality products.&quot; Again, the latter examines the system interactions and emergent behavior rather than making moral judgments about the participants.</text></comment> | <story><title>Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews</title><url>http://blog.kevmod.com/2020/12/amazon-disallows-pointing-out-paid-reviews/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jdmichal</author><text>If you&#x27;ve never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin&#x27;s Playing to Win.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw&#x2F;</a><p>Specifically the chapter &quot;Introducing... the Scrub&quot; discusses exactly this sentiment.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw-book&#x2F;introducingthe-scrub" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sirlin.net&#x2F;ptw-book&#x2F;introducingthe-scrub</a><p>&gt; In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on someone is often called cheap. A throw is a special kind of move that grabs an opponent and damages him, even when the opponent is defending against all other kinds of attacks. The entire purpose of the throw is to be able to damage an opponent who sits and blocks and doesn’t attack. As far as the game is concerned, throwing is an integral part of the design—it’s meant to be there—yet the scrub has constructed his own set of principles in his mind that state he should be totally impervious to all attacks while blocking. The scrub thinks of blocking as a kind of magic shield that will protect him indefinitely.</text></item><item><author>jrockway</author><text>There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this. It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won&#x27;t actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain. Seems silly to me.<p>(Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that&#x27;s a strong argument to not do it.)</text></item><item><author>toxik</author><text>... and give away $20 gift cards to people who leave 5-star reviews!</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>Write an ebook on how to make money on Amazon, sell it for $297, and post a Show HN about it.</text></item><item><author>Buttons840</author><text>Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it.<p>EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companies trying to buy 5-star reviews are themselves exploited to the extent that people do this.<p>The cost to the original company is a lost sale, a lost product, and $20 [lost] in exchange for a legitimate looking 5-star review (from someone who is not a bot). That may well be worth it for the company, so I&#x27;m not sure this scheme would actually stop dishonest reviews, only make it worse.</text></item><item><author>ilamont</author><text>I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 &quot;gift card&quot; if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different.<p>I didn&#x27;t try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller.<p>I documented everything including photos, my exchange with Amazon customer service, and the confirmation from the seller that they would pay me $20 for a 5-star review. I did not take the money offered ... I was appalled at the situation and more than a little angry that I had been tricked by bogus reviews.<p>Here&#x27;s what happened when I reported the seller:<p><i>Me: Hi. The box for this product contained a card that says “Amazon $20 gift card” and looks like a gift card, but the back says I have to give a 5 star review and send my order information to an outlook email address. Is this legitimate? Is it really a $20 Amazon gift card?<p>Amazon: Thank you so much for your information on this, I will certainly pass it along here so that we can check this promotion or offer directly with the seller. Because I am not seeing that advertised on the item at all And would not be capable of confirming if that is a legit Amazon gift card because, I do not see that offer on the item<p>Me: So what should I do?<p>Amazon: My best suggestion would be to contact the seller directly for this through this link [redacted] So that you can confirm directly with them if this is legit or not Certainly giving away gift cards for good reviews is not professional And I have to report the seller for that<p>Me: I thought this type of offer was forbidden by Amazon’s own policies for sellers. But I will contact them using the link you sent to ask them if that’s what you recommend.</i><p>Even though the CSR reported the seller, and I confirmed with the seller through Amazon&#x27;s own communication system that they were paying $20 per 5 star review, nothing happened to the seller. The item (a webcam) is still for sale on Amazon, with thousands of additional 5-star reviews - more than 12,000 now, compared to 3,266 when I let Amazon know how they were gaming the reviews in September.<p>Once again, the good guys (in the case, customers and honest sellers) lose out while the bad guys win, with no repercussions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kbenson</author><text>And this is more akin to a situation where someone finds a glitch that allows them to throw someone from across the screen, never having to actually get close and risk attack. At that point, there&#x27;s two options from the game designers.<p>They can patch the glitch to restore what people considered the normal, designed, and balanced gameplay, or they can state that&#x27;s just how the system works now and people need to choose whether to accept that or not and play something else.<p>Amazon can fix (or attempt to at least) the problem and make it harder for sellers to get 5 star reviews and lower reviews averages for some big selling items, or they can choose to do nothing, and some people will decide to leave and shop elsewhere because they can&#x27;t trust the site and reviews.<p>Actually, there&#x27;s a third option, which is that they can say they are doing everything they can to fix the problem while not doing much, therefore maximizing both reviews&#x2F;profit as well as customer satisfaction in the short term. If they <i>actually</i> start fixing the problem before too long, it might be the maximal solution for them, but if they take too long their reputation will suffer even more (and it may give competitors a toe-hold). I suspect Amazon is doing this. I have no idea if they can go longer, are at the point they need to change, or are too late, but as a customer it sucks right now.</text></comment> |
26,334,901 | 26,334,869 | 1 | 3 | 26,329,144 | train | <story><title>Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecraft creator (2011)</title><url>https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-theft-ridiculous-lost-sales-they-dont-exist-says-minecraft-creator-110303/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yarcob</author><text>I make client side Mac app with trivial copy protection and unlimited free trial, and people still pay for licenses.<p>My app is practically almost free except for a nag dialog, and I still make a living from it.<p>Piracy may matter to big companies that have lots of employees who try to extract every possible cent from their audience.<p>If you just want to make a living from your software, you should not waste time worrying about piracy.</text></item><item><author>mindcandy</author><text>As a game developer, there are two conflicting stories I have heard about game piracy for multiple decades.<p>From the consumers: Piracy doesn&#x27;t matter. Pirates were never going to buy anyway.<p>From the AAA producers: &gt;50% of lifetime revenue for a game is made in the first 3-6 months after release. During that time, they sit and wait in dread for &quot;Crack Day&quot;. The exact day the DRM crack is released, revenue permanently drops hard.<p>I&#x27;ve read similar stories from small non-game desktop ISVs here on Hacker News. That they can clearly see on their revenue graphs the release dates of updates that contain DRM changes. Of course, most people on HN work on web-based software. Web based software has pretty much completely overtaken desktop software because of it&#x27;s many advantages --such as being impossible to pirate.<p>I wonder how many people here have actually worked on a pirate-able product? Phone apps are technically pirate-able. But, like console games, pirating is such an inconvenience (compared to desktop piracy) that it is relatively rarely done. But, even on phones, most of the revenue is to unlock server-based features. I can say from experience that app hacking for client-side features in phone apps happens quite a lot despite the inconvenience.<p>Meanwhile, Minecraft was a story of someone in exactly the opposite situation from a AAA developer. Having zero reputation and zero marketing budget, it made complete sense for Notch to give away his game for free at first and slowly increase the price as consumer awareness and confidence grew. At all points Minecraft was the Indie Dream Story of starting as a nobody and gradually growing an audience who hands you money out of respect for your product rather than as a requirement of transacting with you to attain it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TheOtherHobbes</author><text>Conversely I know a number of music software (VST) developers who simply <i>gave up</i> because piracy nuked their income.<p>There are specific niches and specific relationship models where piracy won&#x27;t do this. But there are far more where it will.<p>Ultimately it comes down to the ridiculous notion that because cost-of-copying is effectively zero then so is product value.<p>This handily ignores the hours&#x2F;days&#x2F;weeks&#x2F;years of development effort that can go into a product, and the use value - which may translate into income - that it offers users.<p>As a creator you certainly have the option to decide on the relationship model you want with your customers. <i>Piracy removes that right.</i></text></comment> | <story><title>Piracy is not theft, Lost sales don't exist, says Minecraft creator (2011)</title><url>https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-theft-ridiculous-lost-sales-they-dont-exist-says-minecraft-creator-110303/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>yarcob</author><text>I make client side Mac app with trivial copy protection and unlimited free trial, and people still pay for licenses.<p>My app is practically almost free except for a nag dialog, and I still make a living from it.<p>Piracy may matter to big companies that have lots of employees who try to extract every possible cent from their audience.<p>If you just want to make a living from your software, you should not waste time worrying about piracy.</text></item><item><author>mindcandy</author><text>As a game developer, there are two conflicting stories I have heard about game piracy for multiple decades.<p>From the consumers: Piracy doesn&#x27;t matter. Pirates were never going to buy anyway.<p>From the AAA producers: &gt;50% of lifetime revenue for a game is made in the first 3-6 months after release. During that time, they sit and wait in dread for &quot;Crack Day&quot;. The exact day the DRM crack is released, revenue permanently drops hard.<p>I&#x27;ve read similar stories from small non-game desktop ISVs here on Hacker News. That they can clearly see on their revenue graphs the release dates of updates that contain DRM changes. Of course, most people on HN work on web-based software. Web based software has pretty much completely overtaken desktop software because of it&#x27;s many advantages --such as being impossible to pirate.<p>I wonder how many people here have actually worked on a pirate-able product? Phone apps are technically pirate-able. But, like console games, pirating is such an inconvenience (compared to desktop piracy) that it is relatively rarely done. But, even on phones, most of the revenue is to unlock server-based features. I can say from experience that app hacking for client-side features in phone apps happens quite a lot despite the inconvenience.<p>Meanwhile, Minecraft was a story of someone in exactly the opposite situation from a AAA developer. Having zero reputation and zero marketing budget, it made complete sense for Notch to give away his game for free at first and slowly increase the price as consumer awareness and confidence grew. At all points Minecraft was the Indie Dream Story of starting as a nobody and gradually growing an audience who hands you money out of respect for your product rather than as a requirement of transacting with you to attain it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>finiteseries</author><text>macOS software automatically excludes &gt;95% of the human population from its user base, and the remaining bit is incredibly wealthy and used to the macOS tradition of high quality botique software for a price.<p>The PC and Android gaming markets are slightly different beasts.</text></comment> |
28,055,165 | 28,053,517 | 1 | 2 | 28,053,144 | train | <story><title>Amazon Unlawfully Confiscated Union Literature, NLRB Finds</title><url>https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvz3kv/amazon-unlawfully-confiscated-union-literature-nlrb-finds</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ggm</author><text>Because my engagement with unions has only been positive, I am interested in the amazing number of people who seem motivated to say how negatively they feel about unions. I get that in an oppositional sense, if you don&#x27;t want what a union wants, then they tend to cast into the bad, but for the middle ground who are not VCs, owners, Managers, and are candidates for union membership, I find it really strange how much people cast them into a class of &quot;money grabbers for no benefit&quot;<p>Do people feel the same about life insurance, car insurance? Its not that you actually intend being harrassed or sacked (fall ill, have a car accident) It&#x27;s that you don&#x27;t want to find yourself on the wrong side of an employment dispute (accident claim) without some insurance.<p>Unions may be taking your hard earned money. They may be doing things which you don&#x27;t like (do I love my car insurance company?) But, they have a neccessary role in risk management.<p>We talk about risk management in the ICT sector all the time. Why can&#x27;t we talk about risk management for labour hire?<p>Amazon used &quot;dirty tricks&quot; to win this election. I am sure the Union bust some minor rules too, but overall I am reasonably confident that the vote was neither free, nor fair. I also do think there is no latent 100% pro-union vote out there, and that a large number of the polled workers don&#x27;t want a union, or the cost of the union, or the risk of jobloss from Amazon if they join the union (which is illegal but still has a risk of happening) -So I don&#x27;t for a minute believe a re-vote will magically reverse the signal with an overwhelming result.<p>What interests me, is the basis for opposition to the union in the first place. Do people really think the garment workers in New York were backing the wrong horse? Do people think the machineguns which Ford arranged to turn on a union march in Detroit didn&#x27;t happen?<p>&quot;oh, that would never happen now...&quot;</text></comment> | <story><title>Amazon Unlawfully Confiscated Union Literature, NLRB Finds</title><url>https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvz3kv/amazon-unlawfully-confiscated-union-literature-nlrb-finds</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Animats</author><text>This could work out. Each time the employer violates an NRLB rule during an organizing campaign, even if the employer wins, there&#x27;s another election in 3 months. Until the union wins or the employer stops breaking the rules.</text></comment> |
31,194,516 | 31,194,579 | 1 | 2 | 31,194,165 | train | <story><title>I employed a California resident, so now I’m subject to its regulations</title><url>https://ccleve.com/p/dont-hire-remote-employees-living</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>r3dey3</author><text>At least California is generous enough to require at least 25% of payroll. Most states, if you have even a single employee in that state you need to register as a business in that state (and pay associated filing fees and taxes).<p>This isn&#x27;t really news. 15 minutes of reading about staring an LLC in Deleware and you&#x27;ll find you have to register in the state you live as well - so it shouldn&#x27;t be a shock you have to file in places you have employees.<p>1099 is definitely the way to go for as long as you can - people still get social security credit.<p>IANAL, this isn&#x27;t legal advice, blah blah blah</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>e40</author><text>Words of advice, though, if the business is in CA don&#x27;t hire contractors via 1099 unless the work really does fall under the legal definition of what a 1099 can be used for (in CA). If they appear to be an employee, in any way, then they should be an employee. The CA EDD loves auditing and assessing back taxes and fines. And all it takes is a disgruntled contractor to call the EDD.</text></comment> | <story><title>I employed a California resident, so now I’m subject to its regulations</title><url>https://ccleve.com/p/dont-hire-remote-employees-living</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>r3dey3</author><text>At least California is generous enough to require at least 25% of payroll. Most states, if you have even a single employee in that state you need to register as a business in that state (and pay associated filing fees and taxes).<p>This isn&#x27;t really news. 15 minutes of reading about staring an LLC in Deleware and you&#x27;ll find you have to register in the state you live as well - so it shouldn&#x27;t be a shock you have to file in places you have employees.<p>1099 is definitely the way to go for as long as you can - people still get social security credit.<p>IANAL, this isn&#x27;t legal advice, blah blah blah</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andrewljohnson</author><text>California has a really strict view of what a contractor is, so 1099s are not as feasible as they seem in CA: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dir.ca.gov&#x2F;dlse&#x2F;faq_independentcontractor.htm#:~:text=AB%205%20requires%20the%20application,Commission%20(IWC)%20wage%20orders" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.dir.ca.gov&#x2F;dlse&#x2F;faq_independentcontractor.htm#:~...</a>.<p>IANAL, but if you are building a software product, and you hire someone to do software development work on your core product, then CA may easily take the view that person is an employee because of the ABC test (as of September 2019).</text></comment> |
5,009,819 | 5,007,064 | 1 | 2 | 5,006,368 | train | <story><title>America's Real Criminal Element: Lead</title><url>http://www.motherjones.com/print/208586</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>Fun fact: the banning of leaded gasoline was one of the biggest regulatory successes in history, and went a long way to validate the model.<p>The use of leaded gasoline was a classic market failure. It saved a small number of companies a relatively small amount of money, but was on the net a huge negative for the overall economic because it basically pumped lead directly into the bloodstream of children through their lungs, making them dumber. It didn't really make anybody sick, though, and the ultimate impact was both difficult to quantify and valuate as well as impossible to trace to any particular manufacturers leaded gasoline in any individual case.<p>The effect of the regulation was direct. As the phaseout was implemented between the 70's to the 90's, culminating in the outright ban of leaded gasoline in the 90's, the blood lead levels in the American population dropped from 16 micrograms per deciliter in 1976 to to 3 micrograms per deciliter in 1991. This drop corresponded to the avoidance of a several point drop in IQ among children (one study found a 3.9 point drop as lead levels in children were increased from 2.4 ugrams/deciliter to 10 ugrams/deciliter).[1]<p>The regulation ended up costing the auto/gasoline industry billions of dollars to retool. However, researchers estimated that the avoided cost from dropping blood lead levels was $17.2 billion annually per 1 ugram/deciliter reduction.[2]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1257652/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1257652/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.unep.org/transport/pcfv/pdf/brochurelead.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.unep.org/transport/pcfv/pdf/brochurelead.pdf</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Someone</author><text>Other 'fun' fact: the guy who discovered that lead prevents 'knocking' in engines also discovered the usefulness of freon as a refrigerant (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr." rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.</a>)<p>His works probably did more environmental damage than those of anybody else in history.</text></comment> | <story><title>America's Real Criminal Element: Lead</title><url>http://www.motherjones.com/print/208586</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>Fun fact: the banning of leaded gasoline was one of the biggest regulatory successes in history, and went a long way to validate the model.<p>The use of leaded gasoline was a classic market failure. It saved a small number of companies a relatively small amount of money, but was on the net a huge negative for the overall economic because it basically pumped lead directly into the bloodstream of children through their lungs, making them dumber. It didn't really make anybody sick, though, and the ultimate impact was both difficult to quantify and valuate as well as impossible to trace to any particular manufacturers leaded gasoline in any individual case.<p>The effect of the regulation was direct. As the phaseout was implemented between the 70's to the 90's, culminating in the outright ban of leaded gasoline in the 90's, the blood lead levels in the American population dropped from 16 micrograms per deciliter in 1976 to to 3 micrograms per deciliter in 1991. This drop corresponded to the avoidance of a several point drop in IQ among children (one study found a 3.9 point drop as lead levels in children were increased from 2.4 ugrams/deciliter to 10 ugrams/deciliter).[1]<p>The regulation ended up costing the auto/gasoline industry billions of dollars to retool. However, researchers estimated that the avoided cost from dropping blood lead levels was $17.2 billion annually per 1 ugram/deciliter reduction.[2]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1257652/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1257652/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.unep.org/transport/pcfv/pdf/brochurelead.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.unep.org/transport/pcfv/pdf/brochurelead.pdf</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>InclinedPlane</author><text>Humans are notorious at prioritizing obvious short-term costs over nebulous, indirect long-term costs. And this applies even across huge orders of magnitude differences, hundreds, thousands, even billions. To bring this back to HN relevancy, consider how to get on top of this problem at a corporate/startup level. Companies that solve those deep, omnipresent, indirect costs problems (often through development of high quality internal tooling) have a huge advantage over their competition, because doing so is a huge force multiplier.<p>At one point a coworker of mine raised the idea that when you do some process that is painful sometimes it means you need to do it more. Because doing it more frequently can force improvements in process, technique, or tooling which then produce dividends.</text></comment> |
24,753,348 | 24,753,329 | 1 | 2 | 24,750,110 | train | <story><title>Abolish the Cash Bail System</title><url>https://arcdigital.media/abolish-the-cash-bail-system-3cf6476ecaae</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jokethrowaway</author><text>Western Europe barely works.<p>Bringing one data point: my ex landlord wasn&#x27;t really the owner of the house and was scamming rich landlords who had too many properties to control them properly.
He also scammed tenants (eg. Not returning deposits).<p>The London metropolitan police jailed him, plenty of evidence and testimonies.
He was released nonetheless, he escaped to Dubai (where he has family), he came back to the UK and opened another real estate company doing the same scam under another name. I fished him using LinkedIn and checking his old LinkedIn contacts.<p>Metropolitan police was aware of everything as I was in touch with a detective.
He had the entire story, the new office location of the scammer, the website and photos showing the entire scam repeating itself and dropped the case.<p>The police has zero incentive to do anything about criminals, they just get more funding the worse criminality gets.
A bail system is not perfect, but prevents people escaping, or at least collect some money from people who want to escape law.<p>This could be used to compensate victims, but I don&#x27;t have high hopes for the government ever doing that.<p>If we want to prevent innocents ending up in jail we could just make victimless crimes legal. Weirdly enough, nobody seems to get behind that.</text></item><item><author>kstenerud</author><text>Western Europe doesn&#x27;t have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don&#x27;t run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that&#x27;s pretty rare.<p>OR consider it this way: How much effort goes into making someone disappear into the witness relocation program? Now consider how much bigger and organized the US government is compared to some drug cartel? The amount of preparation and execution required to evade the US government for any length of time is immense, and beyond the means of almost everybody.<p>In Germany for example, you get a court summons, and if convicted, you get a prison summons with about a month to tie up your affairs. None of this medieval hauling people away in chains BS.<p>Bail might have made sense in the Wild West, when you could just run a few states over with your stuff and start over under a new name, but nowadays a fugitive life cuts you off from everything. And if someone is crazy enough to go that far, a bail bond won&#x27;t make a lick of difference.</text></item><item><author>bawolff</author><text>Pro side: I don&#x27;t see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don&#x27;t flee, in principle.<p>It makes sure people are less likely to run away while at the same time doesnt force them to sit in jail while they await trial.<p>It should be relative to your ability to pay, and the commercial bondsman industry seems messed up, but those are implementation details and not the core of the system.<p>*as an interesting note, in Canada its illegal to be a commercial bondsmand - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;laws-lois.justice.gc.ca&#x2F;eng&#x2F;acts&#x2F;C-46&#x2F;section-139.html#docCont" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;laws-lois.justice.gc.ca&#x2F;eng&#x2F;acts&#x2F;C-46&#x2F;section-139.ht...</a> i think that helps make the bail system be much more sane.</text></item><item><author>ketzo</author><text>Absolutely. It’s one of the most cruel and predatory systems that I can imagine — regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? Christ. Give me a break.<p>It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for.<p>&gt; Today, three out of five people in U.S. jails have not been convicted of a crime. This amounts to nearly half a million people sitting in jail each day, despite being presumed innocent under the law. The vast majority of these individuals are awaiting trial but cannot afford the bail amount set for pretrial release.<p>That is <i>fucking crazy.</i> That sounds like a Blade-Runner-esque dystopia. And it’s our reality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jopsen</author><text>The lack of prosecution has more to do with priority than lack of bail.<p>Scams can be hard to prosecute, and the harm inflicted on victims is mostly financial. Personally, I would love to see more internet scammers (spammers in particular) prosecuted, but if I think hard about I can recognize that there might be crimes it more important to investigate.</text></comment> | <story><title>Abolish the Cash Bail System</title><url>https://arcdigital.media/abolish-the-cash-bail-system-3cf6476ecaae</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jokethrowaway</author><text>Western Europe barely works.<p>Bringing one data point: my ex landlord wasn&#x27;t really the owner of the house and was scamming rich landlords who had too many properties to control them properly.
He also scammed tenants (eg. Not returning deposits).<p>The London metropolitan police jailed him, plenty of evidence and testimonies.
He was released nonetheless, he escaped to Dubai (where he has family), he came back to the UK and opened another real estate company doing the same scam under another name. I fished him using LinkedIn and checking his old LinkedIn contacts.<p>Metropolitan police was aware of everything as I was in touch with a detective.
He had the entire story, the new office location of the scammer, the website and photos showing the entire scam repeating itself and dropped the case.<p>The police has zero incentive to do anything about criminals, they just get more funding the worse criminality gets.
A bail system is not perfect, but prevents people escaping, or at least collect some money from people who want to escape law.<p>This could be used to compensate victims, but I don&#x27;t have high hopes for the government ever doing that.<p>If we want to prevent innocents ending up in jail we could just make victimless crimes legal. Weirdly enough, nobody seems to get behind that.</text></item><item><author>kstenerud</author><text>Western Europe doesn&#x27;t have bail bonds, and seems to function quite well. People don&#x27;t run away, because running away from a criminal prosecution means your current life (house, possessions, career, friends, family, etc) is over. People who actually are flight risks (due to the nature of the crime, extensive assets out-of-country, etc) can be held in jail pending trial, but that&#x27;s pretty rare.<p>OR consider it this way: How much effort goes into making someone disappear into the witness relocation program? Now consider how much bigger and organized the US government is compared to some drug cartel? The amount of preparation and execution required to evade the US government for any length of time is immense, and beyond the means of almost everybody.<p>In Germany for example, you get a court summons, and if convicted, you get a prison summons with about a month to tie up your affairs. None of this medieval hauling people away in chains BS.<p>Bail might have made sense in the Wild West, when you could just run a few states over with your stuff and start over under a new name, but nowadays a fugitive life cuts you off from everything. And if someone is crazy enough to go that far, a bail bond won&#x27;t make a lick of difference.</text></item><item><author>bawolff</author><text>Pro side: I don&#x27;t see anything wrong with requiring a surety to ensure that people awaiting trial don&#x27;t flee, in principle.<p>It makes sure people are less likely to run away while at the same time doesnt force them to sit in jail while they await trial.<p>It should be relative to your ability to pay, and the commercial bondsman industry seems messed up, but those are implementation details and not the core of the system.<p>*as an interesting note, in Canada its illegal to be a commercial bondsmand - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;laws-lois.justice.gc.ca&#x2F;eng&#x2F;acts&#x2F;C-46&#x2F;section-139.html#docCont" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;laws-lois.justice.gc.ca&#x2F;eng&#x2F;acts&#x2F;C-46&#x2F;section-139.ht...</a> i think that helps make the bail system be much more sane.</text></item><item><author>ketzo</author><text>Absolutely. It’s one of the most cruel and predatory systems that I can imagine — regardless of the severity of your crime, your ability to go home and see your family is determined by your financial status? Christ. Give me a break.<p>It’s also one of those policies that I literally can’t force myself to imagine a “pro” argument for.<p>&gt; Today, three out of five people in U.S. jails have not been convicted of a crime. This amounts to nearly half a million people sitting in jail each day, despite being presumed innocent under the law. The vast majority of these individuals are awaiting trial but cannot afford the bail amount set for pretrial release.<p>That is <i>fucking crazy.</i> That sounds like a Blade-Runner-esque dystopia. And it’s our reality.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rusticpenn</author><text>The goal is to let some guilty walk free so that innocent are not troubled. There are people who know the weak points of the system, sometimes they will escape, but its worse to have someone innocent of a crime in prison.</text></comment> |
26,148,512 | 26,146,894 | 1 | 3 | 26,146,218 | train | <story><title>California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/business/economy/california-housing-crisis.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tqi</author><text>Why is this always framed as a problem caused by people looking for a place to live?<p>I moved to SF for a job. I&#x27;m not the one who decided to not build enough new housing for 30 years. I&#x27;m not the one who decided to approve all those new office buildings. Yet I was the problem for renting an overpriced apartment from an SF native who bought in the 90s, and now pays less than $8K&#x2F;yr in taxes on a place worth over $1M. And now I&#x27;m still the problem if I decide to leave?</text></comment> | <story><title>California’s affordable housing problem is really a national one</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/business/economy/california-housing-crisis.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>asdff</author><text>Nowhere is building enough housing for growth. In low cost of living places, chances are if you look at population data, the metro region has been stagnant for decades which has alleviated pressure on supply. In any area with growth at all, prices rise because we don&#x27;t build actual dense housing like we did before WWII (when row houses and mixed use development in walking distance to frequent public transit were the norm everywhere from Manhattan to Los Angeles to downtown Boise, Idaho). We build either tracts of single family homes by clearcutting wildlands adjacent to freeways, or far too little apartments in a single 4-5 story building spanning an entire city block.<p>In comparison to a block of 4-5 story row homes, these apartment builds are a compromise and will come back to bite planners in the coming decades as construction costs continue to rise. Since it&#x27;s a single building, you can&#x27;t redevelop this structure without leveling the entire block. That makes it impossible to do unless you are a deep pocketed development corporation, versus a row house that could be owned outright by an individual and redeveloped by that individual to meet the market demand of the growing city.</text></comment> |
38,552,341 | 38,551,540 | 1 | 3 | 38,550,737 | train | <story><title>Behind the scenes of Sound ID in Merlin – Identify birds using your phone (2021)</title><url>https://www.macaulaylibrary.org/2021/06/22/behind-the-scenes-of-sound-id-in-merlin/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>haswell</author><text>The Merlin app has transformed my nature&#x2F;photo walks, and got me interested in birds.<p>I never realized how many unique birds I was hearing as I’d walk through an area until I turned this app on. It opened a whole new awareness, and helped me remember which bird calls go with which species.<p>There’s also something incredibly cool and satisfying and beautiful about the resulting spectrograms. Watching the shape of the bird call appear visually in realtime really changed my experience of listening.<p>I blame this app for making me buy a birding lens for my camera, which had previously been used primarily for landscapes&#x2F;cityscapes. I highly recommend giving it a try.</text></comment> | <story><title>Behind the scenes of Sound ID in Merlin – Identify birds using your phone (2021)</title><url>https://www.macaulaylibrary.org/2021/06/22/behind-the-scenes-of-sound-id-in-merlin/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ttt11199907</author><text>I&#x27;ve always thought that these apps are missing a feature-set: Manipulation of the sound clip prior to identification. In both this app and BirdNET the selection always selects from the lowest recorded frequency to the highest -- I would like to be able to select the frequency band I&#x27;m interested in. Maybe first select time, then put corners on the rectangle to be shaped. The sound file passed to the identifier would appear cropped such that the unselected region is totally silent to the identifier. I am often trying to identify an owl or other lower-registered bird but it is unidentifiable because of noisy crickets&#x2F;cicadas.</text></comment> |
9,110,047 | 9,109,950 | 1 | 2 | 9,108,209 | train | <story><title>How to pick startup ideas</title><url>http://www.defmacro.org/2015/02/25/startup-ideas.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>inthewoods</author><text>Interesting article - a lot of good stuff in it but I found it a bit to general to be really useful. As an example, the author states: &quot;So you need to get to market with a viable product before anyone else does.&quot;<p>That&#x27;s the type of statement that I question - there are plenty of examples of companies creating products in saturated markets where they were not the first mover. In fact, sometime being a first mover can be a disadvantage as you must, as a startup, spend huge amounts of time and money educating the market.<p>Now, the author&#x27;s approach of &quot;look at the trend, get in front of it&quot; is great - but it&#x27;s pretty rare that someone can do that. In startups, I&#x27;ve usually seen that luck plays a bigger role in it than anyone wants to admit - that is, you start a company, and you happen onto the right market wave at the right time.<p>Definitely bookmarking it!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vinceguidry</author><text>I found the article great in forcing me to reconsider my goals in that space. I&#x27;d always had this belief that it was possible, eventually, to find the right idea and break through and become the next Microsoft &#x2F; Google &#x2F; Apple. The more I actually understand about the broader economic environment, and the more I read about the people in question who started these companies, the more it just looks like right-place-right-time luck.<p>The article puts that neatly in proper perspective. And that changes the personal self-actualization path calculus for me considerably. Targeting &quot;building a rocket ship&quot; as a goal doesn&#x27;t make you any more likely to actually build a rocket ship than just starting a company in wherever you find your passion. Where you find your passion is, just due to the way humans are, more likely to be rocket-ship-worthy than any idea borne out of any rational brainstorming process aimed at producing one.</text></comment> | <story><title>How to pick startup ideas</title><url>http://www.defmacro.org/2015/02/25/startup-ideas.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>inthewoods</author><text>Interesting article - a lot of good stuff in it but I found it a bit to general to be really useful. As an example, the author states: &quot;So you need to get to market with a viable product before anyone else does.&quot;<p>That&#x27;s the type of statement that I question - there are plenty of examples of companies creating products in saturated markets where they were not the first mover. In fact, sometime being a first mover can be a disadvantage as you must, as a startup, spend huge amounts of time and money educating the market.<p>Now, the author&#x27;s approach of &quot;look at the trend, get in front of it&quot; is great - but it&#x27;s pretty rare that someone can do that. In startups, I&#x27;ve usually seen that luck plays a bigger role in it than anyone wants to admit - that is, you start a company, and you happen onto the right market wave at the right time.<p>Definitely bookmarking it!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>coffeemug</author><text>&gt; there are plenty of examples of companies creating products in saturated markets where they were not the first mover<p>There is an &quot;exceptions&quot; section closer to the end of the post that discuss this, though it probably should have been longer.<p>The biggest issue with exceptions like this is that first-time founders often jump into a saturated market and think &quot;we can do better -- look at all the counterexamples&quot;, but they end up losing the overwhelming majority of the time. You <i>can</i> jump into a saturated market, but you need a hypothesis as to why you&#x27;re going to win (a distribution edge that existing competitors don&#x27;t have, a new trend that existing competitors can&#x27;t capitalize on, etc.) Especially in the latter case, one could make an argument that you will have discovered a new trend&#x2F;market, though at that point it&#x27;s a matter of definitions.</text></comment> |
39,917,361 | 39,916,732 | 1 | 3 | 39,915,594 | train | <story><title>PyTorch Library for Running LLM on Intel CPU and GPU</title><url>https://github.com/intel-analytics/ipex-llm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>vegabook</author><text>The company that did 4-cores-forever, has the opportunity to redeem itself, in its next consumer GPU release, by disrupting the &quot;8-16GB VRAM forever&quot; that AMD and Nvidia have been imposing on us for a decade. It would be poetic to see 32-48GB at a non-eye-watering price point.<p>Intel definitely seems to be doing all the right things on software support.</text></comment> | <story><title>PyTorch Library for Running LLM on Intel CPU and GPU</title><url>https://github.com/intel-analytics/ipex-llm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>captaindiego</author><text>Are there any Intel GPUs with a lot of vRAM that someone could recommend that would work with this?</text></comment> |
5,055,027 | 5,054,749 | 1 | 2 | 5,054,229 | train | <story><title>On the state of Windows on the desktop</title><url>http://www.brankovukelic.com/2013/01/on-state-of-windows-on-desktop.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>meaty</author><text>Surprisingly short on facts, even if it is a parody. Very slashdot circa 1999. Some notes:<p>Windows is free to download and try. You don't have to enter a product key - just hit next and add it if you decide to buy it. You get it for 30 days. Here is the URL if you want to try it (windows 7 x64 professional):<p><a href="http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso" rel="nofollow">http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso</a><p>There is a live CD but it's only used for recovery. There isn't much of a market for <i>trying</i> Windows.<p>Drivers. Windows update always handles these for me at least. I haven't had to bother with driver fiddling for years. Not only that, 99% of hardware I've worked with recently just works out of the box anyway.<p>Package manager. Yes there is - there is just no pick and place repository like Debian. You can get packages from Windows Update though. The package manager is called Windows Installer and the packages are MSI packages.<p>Everyone installs K Lite Codec Pack and media player classic these days (or VLC) almost as a first item to install. Same as you install win32-codecs on Linux.<p>Maildir import. You stick an IMAP server on your Linux box and copy all the shit to your PST.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lmm</author><text>&#62;Windows is free to download and try<p>Lots of ways in which windows isn't quite as expensive or has better things available seem to exist but be hidden. I believe you when you say a trial exists, but it's not easy to find - not only is that not on microsoft's homepage, it's on some random other domain (digitalrivercontent.net? Really). It's the same with bizspark/dreamspark/etc. - there's a lot of ways to get microsoft stuff cheap or free <i>if you know them</i>, but they're not easy to find if you don't.<p>&#62;Drivers. Windows update always handles these for me at least. I haven't had to bother with driver fiddling for years. Not only that, 99% of hardware I've worked with recently just works out of the box anyway.<p>Only last week I had to track down some realtek drivers for the microphone on my parents' laptop. Not only had they been unable to find them themselves, they'd <i>paid a guy to install drivers on that computer</i> and he'd missed the microphone. I'll agree that usually it's easy to get drivers once you have an internet connection - but quite a lot of wireless chipsets won't work out of the box without a driver. I haven't bothered with driver fiddling for years either, but that's because I've stopped building my own systems and been using ones that come with windows (and drivers) preinstalled; try installing retail windows on a computer and you might be surprised.<p>&#62;Everyone installs K Lite Codec Pack and media player classic these days (or VLC) almost as a first item to install.<p>Sure, "everyone" knows about twenty different things you download and install as soon as you get a new windows machine. I see another post pointing to nlite as a solution to all this. But you only know this because you're familiar with windows. Many of the problems windows users trying linux for the first time complain of are of the same nature, and easier to solve.<p>&#62;Same as you install win32-codecs on Linux.<p>That hasn't been necessary for years.<p>&#62;Maildir import. You stick an IMAP server on your Linux box and copy all the shit to your PST.<p>Seriously? That's supposed to be a user-friendly solution?</text></comment> | <story><title>On the state of Windows on the desktop</title><url>http://www.brankovukelic.com/2013/01/on-state-of-windows-on-desktop.html</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>meaty</author><text>Surprisingly short on facts, even if it is a parody. Very slashdot circa 1999. Some notes:<p>Windows is free to download and try. You don't have to enter a product key - just hit next and add it if you decide to buy it. You get it for 30 days. Here is the URL if you want to try it (windows 7 x64 professional):<p><a href="http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso" rel="nofollow">http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso</a><p>There is a live CD but it's only used for recovery. There isn't much of a market for <i>trying</i> Windows.<p>Drivers. Windows update always handles these for me at least. I haven't had to bother with driver fiddling for years. Not only that, 99% of hardware I've worked with recently just works out of the box anyway.<p>Package manager. Yes there is - there is just no pick and place repository like Debian. You can get packages from Windows Update though. The package manager is called Windows Installer and the packages are MSI packages.<p>Everyone installs K Lite Codec Pack and media player classic these days (or VLC) almost as a first item to install. Same as you install win32-codecs on Linux.<p>Maildir import. You stick an IMAP server on your Linux box and copy all the shit to your PST.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Justsignedup</author><text>Dude. Dude. Listen to yourself...<p>a) "Everyone installs K-lite" Wow yeah. Everyone who torrents. All the other poor fellas have no idea. And I personally know those other poor fellas and they could not tell you want a codec is if you put a gun to their heads. Hell, my wife is one.<p>b) I WISH there was a Windows 8 live CD. MS does not want you to "try windows" they want you committed.<p>c) Drivers. Ok I give you this one. For the most part windows 7 is ok. Gone are the windows XP days where if you didn't have a disk on you, you didn't have your network card drivers.<p>d) There is NO PACKAGE MANAGER! None, ZERO. Windows Installer as a package manager is like saying my Garage is a parking lot + valet. Windows installer (this atrocity that is...) is used to... INSTALL software. It's a glorified unzip. There is no way to say "oh hey windows installer, I'd really like to install ruby 1.9.3 with sources" and it would say "give me an hour". Instead you say "windows installer? hello? ok to google!"... "to google" can often lead an unexperience used like my grandfather to download spyware.<p>e) Well. At least windows can be downloaded now as a free unactivated copy. Gone are the days where I purchase a copy of windows only to find out I can't get a legal disk image of windows 7 stand-alone. Only some upgrade, which is not upgradable from windows xp 32 bit.</text></comment> |
39,227,667 | 39,224,732 | 1 | 2 | 39,214,019 | train | <story><title>A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-man-who-invented-vr-goggles-50-years-too-soon</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>janoc</author><text>The problem is that the guy didn&#x27;t &quot;invent&quot; anything, more like had a farfetched idea and left all &quot;the practical details&quot; to others to work out. That&#x27;s like saying that Meliès invented space travel - he too had the idea of flying to the Moon in a gun projectile ...<p>It was only non-functioning mockup, at best, because the vacuum tube electronics of the era was simply incapable of producing a wireless device with those capabilities and weighing 140 (!!!) grams.<p>Compare that with the first actual working HMD which was the Sutherland&#x27;s &quot;Sword of Damocles&quot; boom-mounted display from 1968.<p>EDIT: It was George Meliès not Lumiere brothers who made the famous film. Thanks for correcting me.</text></comment> | <story><title>A man who invented VR goggles 50 years too soon (2016)</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-man-who-invented-vr-goggles-50-years-too-soon</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Terr_</author><text>I wish more people knew&#x2F;appreciated the incrementalism of progress.<p>A huge amount of constant &quot;boring&quot; percent-point improvement work or price-shifts are required to unlock the interesting changes, and often the people and companies associated with those new discoveries and ways of doing things are <i>not</i> really the first at all, but rather the lucky or the ruthless.</text></comment> |
15,345,803 | 15,345,898 | 1 | 2 | 15,345,488 | train | <story><title>Why did we choose Rust to develop TiKV?</title><url>https://pingcap.github.io/blog/2017/09/26/whyrust/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>eikenberry</author><text>TLDR; the author likes rust and wanted to use it. The article reads like some dev&#x27;s rationalizing what they want to do to the management. These types of things are fine, but as a dev to a dev it is obvious that they just want to use this cool tech. Good for them.</text></comment> | <story><title>Why did we choose Rust to develop TiKV?</title><url>https://pingcap.github.io/blog/2017/09/26/whyrust/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>pornel</author><text>I can&#x27;t wait until Rust is no longer be perceived as hipster trendy choice.<p>It&#x27;s a very solid language in the no-GC niche and shouldn&#x27;t need a blog post from every project that uses it.<p>Does it have to be 30 years old before it&#x27;s not &quot;new&quot; and weird?</text></comment> |
31,095,637 | 31,093,287 | 1 | 3 | 31,092,912 | train | <story><title>Stop Validating Email Addresses with Regex (2012)</title><url>https://davidcel.is/posts/stop-validating-email-addresses-with-regex/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>easrng</author><text>Domains ending with a dot are valid though, and it&#x27;s needed sometimes. For example, someone@ai. (ai. is a TLD) is a different email than someone@ai (ai is a local hostname)</text></item><item><author>hathawsh</author><text>I tried using that expression for a while, but then a user with a valid email address containing upper unicode characters showed up. I switched to a simpler expression:<p><pre><code> ^[^@\s\x00-\x1f]+@[^@\s\x00-\x1f.]+(:?\.[^@\s\x00-\x1f.]+)*$
</code></pre>
It requires exactly one &quot;@&quot;, disallows whitespace and control characters, prevents repeated dots in the domain name, and ensures the domain doesn&#x27;t end with a dot. It catches a few typos and I think it allows every real email address I&#x27;ve heard of.</text></item><item><author>dchest</author><text>RFCs for email addresses are cool, but on the web we have our own standards!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;html.spec.whatwg.org&#x2F;multipage&#x2F;input.html#valid-e-mail-address" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;html.spec.whatwg.org&#x2F;multipage&#x2F;input.html#valid-e-ma...</a><p>&quot;This requirement is a willful violation of RFC 5322, which defines a syntax for email addresses that is simultaneously too strict (before the &quot;@&quot; character), too vague (after the &quot;@&quot; character), and too lax (allowing comments, whitespace characters, and quoted strings in manners unfamiliar to most users) to be of practical use here.&quot;<p>The regex is:<p><pre><code> &#x2F;^[a-zA-Z0-9.!#$%&amp;&#x27;*+\&#x2F;=?^_`{|}~-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?(?:\.[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?)*$&#x2F;
</code></pre>
Every browser implements this regex for &lt;input type=&quot;email&quot;&gt;.<p>Chromium:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.chromium.org&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;src&#x2F;+&#x2F;main:third_party&#x2F;blink&#x2F;renderer&#x2F;core&#x2F;html&#x2F;forms&#x2F;email_input_type.cc;l=46-53;bpv=0;bpt=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.chromium.org&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;src&#x2F;+&#x2F;main:thi...</a><p>WebKit:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;blob&#x2F;0d7afc5a45c140c44497a81e92416f01306be877&#x2F;Source&#x2F;WebCore&#x2F;html&#x2F;EmailInputType.cpp#L38" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;blob&#x2F;0d7afc5a45c140c44497a8...</a><p>Yes, do verify email addresses by sending a confirmation link if you bind users to their email addresses, though. Don&#x27;t confuse validation with verification.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Biganon</author><text>I&#x27;m pretty sure the one guy behind ai. doesn&#x27;t justify that you change your regex for him. Let&#x27;s not be overly pedantic.</text></comment> | <story><title>Stop Validating Email Addresses with Regex (2012)</title><url>https://davidcel.is/posts/stop-validating-email-addresses-with-regex/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>easrng</author><text>Domains ending with a dot are valid though, and it&#x27;s needed sometimes. For example, someone@ai. (ai. is a TLD) is a different email than someone@ai (ai is a local hostname)</text></item><item><author>hathawsh</author><text>I tried using that expression for a while, but then a user with a valid email address containing upper unicode characters showed up. I switched to a simpler expression:<p><pre><code> ^[^@\s\x00-\x1f]+@[^@\s\x00-\x1f.]+(:?\.[^@\s\x00-\x1f.]+)*$
</code></pre>
It requires exactly one &quot;@&quot;, disallows whitespace and control characters, prevents repeated dots in the domain name, and ensures the domain doesn&#x27;t end with a dot. It catches a few typos and I think it allows every real email address I&#x27;ve heard of.</text></item><item><author>dchest</author><text>RFCs for email addresses are cool, but on the web we have our own standards!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;html.spec.whatwg.org&#x2F;multipage&#x2F;input.html#valid-e-mail-address" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;html.spec.whatwg.org&#x2F;multipage&#x2F;input.html#valid-e-ma...</a><p>&quot;This requirement is a willful violation of RFC 5322, which defines a syntax for email addresses that is simultaneously too strict (before the &quot;@&quot; character), too vague (after the &quot;@&quot; character), and too lax (allowing comments, whitespace characters, and quoted strings in manners unfamiliar to most users) to be of practical use here.&quot;<p>The regex is:<p><pre><code> &#x2F;^[a-zA-Z0-9.!#$%&amp;&#x27;*+\&#x2F;=?^_`{|}~-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?(?:\.[a-zA-Z0-9](?:[a-zA-Z0-9-]{0,61}[a-zA-Z0-9])?)*$&#x2F;
</code></pre>
Every browser implements this regex for &lt;input type=&quot;email&quot;&gt;.<p>Chromium:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.chromium.org&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;src&#x2F;+&#x2F;main:third_party&#x2F;blink&#x2F;renderer&#x2F;core&#x2F;html&#x2F;forms&#x2F;email_input_type.cc;l=46-53;bpv=0;bpt=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.chromium.org&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;chromium&#x2F;src&#x2F;+&#x2F;main:thi...</a><p>WebKit:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;blob&#x2F;0d7afc5a45c140c44497a81e92416f01306be877&#x2F;Source&#x2F;WebCore&#x2F;html&#x2F;EmailInputType.cpp#L38" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;WebKit&#x2F;blob&#x2F;0d7afc5a45c140c44497a8...</a><p>Yes, do verify email addresses by sending a confirmation link if you bind users to their email addresses, though. Don&#x27;t confuse validation with verification.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hathawsh</author><text>Good to know. I guess I&#x27;ll simplify again. Besides, I wonder whether the expression is vulnerable to catastrophic backtracking.</text></comment> |
7,665,257 | 7,665,279 | 1 | 2 | 7,665,153 | train | <story><title>Exec($_GET</title><url>https://github.com/search?q=exec%28%24_GET&ref=cmdform&type=Code</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deckiedan</author><text>As a theoretical aside, I wonder if it&#x27;d be possible to have a typesystem based solution to these kinds of problems - where variables coming from the user (or from another program) are considered &#x27;unsafe&#x27; and the compiler refuses to let exec() or whatever use them until they&#x27;ve been through a cleaner&#x2F;tester of some kind... (OK, I know PHP doesn&#x27;t have a compiler as such - but a static checker of some kind could work the same...)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gst</author><text><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taint_checking" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Taint_checking</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Exec($_GET</title><url>https://github.com/search?q=exec%28%24_GET&ref=cmdform&type=Code</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deckiedan</author><text>As a theoretical aside, I wonder if it&#x27;d be possible to have a typesystem based solution to these kinds of problems - where variables coming from the user (or from another program) are considered &#x27;unsafe&#x27; and the compiler refuses to let exec() or whatever use them until they&#x27;ve been through a cleaner&#x2F;tester of some kind... (OK, I know PHP doesn&#x27;t have a compiler as such - but a static checker of some kind could work the same...)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Argorak</author><text>On the practical side, Ruby (MRI specifically) has such a system ($SAFE), that taints certain objects (e.g. those gained by IO) and only allows you to use them in certain fashions (e.g. only after explicit handling).<p>It&#x27;s leaky as hell, because all components have to get the marking right. Also, not all Objects have equal trust levels. Objects created due to a HTTP request (GET-Parameters) should certainly be tainted, but how about Object read through IO - do we trust out filesystem? Do we trust the database? Thats more of an architectural decision.<p>In the end, the problem comes down to this: you have to whitelist the world and everything you miss is an error.</text></comment> |
24,380,078 | 24,380,044 | 1 | 3 | 24,375,351 | train | <story><title>SoftBank unmasked as ‘Nasdaq whale’ that stoked tech rally</title><url>https://www.ft.com/content/75587aa6-1f1f-4e9d-b334-3ff866753fa2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>woeirua</author><text>The efficient market hypothesis is the biggest lie in modern history. Bubbles don&#x27;t happen in efficient markets.</text></item><item><author>tarsinge</author><text>As an outside observer, I used to believe the stock market was solid and mostly rational, and that obviously it could not be influenced by a single actor or a subreddit community, contrary to a &quot;playground&quot; like the Bitcoin market. I get the feeling everyone says they see the emperor&#x27;s clothes in the stock market reliability, anticipating everything, but in reality it&#x27;s just short term gambling and post rationalization.<p>Edit: punctuation</text></item><item><author>synaesthesisx</author><text>This is hands down the most entertaining thing I’ve read today. SoftBank is responsible for the spike in gamma across the board, dumping massive amounts of money into OTM calls. Retail (WSB) speculators see unusual options flow, end up piling in on calls and amplify the effect. Market makers are forced to buy the underlying in order to delta hedge, and the price goes up even higher. Rinse and repeat...the positive feedback loop continues and stocks actually only go up.<p>The financial system is far more broken than people realize.<p>I’m guilty of taking advantage of this myself, but it’s basically been free money for the last several months. Up until yesterday at least...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Fordec</author><text>Research paper: Markets are efficient if and only if P=NP <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;1002.2284" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;1002.2284</a></text></comment> | <story><title>SoftBank unmasked as ‘Nasdaq whale’ that stoked tech rally</title><url>https://www.ft.com/content/75587aa6-1f1f-4e9d-b334-3ff866753fa2</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>woeirua</author><text>The efficient market hypothesis is the biggest lie in modern history. Bubbles don&#x27;t happen in efficient markets.</text></item><item><author>tarsinge</author><text>As an outside observer, I used to believe the stock market was solid and mostly rational, and that obviously it could not be influenced by a single actor or a subreddit community, contrary to a &quot;playground&quot; like the Bitcoin market. I get the feeling everyone says they see the emperor&#x27;s clothes in the stock market reliability, anticipating everything, but in reality it&#x27;s just short term gambling and post rationalization.<p>Edit: punctuation</text></item><item><author>synaesthesisx</author><text>This is hands down the most entertaining thing I’ve read today. SoftBank is responsible for the spike in gamma across the board, dumping massive amounts of money into OTM calls. Retail (WSB) speculators see unusual options flow, end up piling in on calls and amplify the effect. Market makers are forced to buy the underlying in order to delta hedge, and the price goes up even higher. Rinse and repeat...the positive feedback loop continues and stocks actually only go up.<p>The financial system is far more broken than people realize.<p>I’m guilty of taking advantage of this myself, but it’s basically been free money for the last several months. Up until yesterday at least...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>refurb</author><text>The efficient market hypothesis just states the market represents the sum total of all available information.<p>If everyone thinks stocks will go up, then the efficient market hypothesis would support a bubble.</text></comment> |
23,304,390 | 23,304,486 | 1 | 3 | 23,302,667 | train | <story><title>A No. 1 hit vanished from Poland’s charts – it’s not going quietly</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/arts/music/poland-chart-song-removed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_visgean</author><text>The same thing can&#x27;t really happen in US because US does not have state media. (Apart from funding Radio free Europe which can&#x27;t operate in US.)</text></item><item><author>etrabroline</author><text>It always rubs me the wrong way when US media criticizes other countries as if the same things don&#x27;t happen in the US. Why was Phil Donahue fired?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffpost.com&#x2F;entry&#x2F;phil-donahue-chris-matthews-msnbc-firing_n_2926643" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffpost.com&#x2F;entry&#x2F;phil-donahue-chris-matthews-m...</a><p>What about Peter Arnett?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.foxnews.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;nbc-severs-ties-with-journalist-peter-arnett" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.foxnews.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;nbc-severs-ties-with-journalis...</a><p>But I guess the Americans have &#x27;private&#x27; media where &#x27;market forces&#x27; prevent criticism of US government policy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Barrin92</author><text>The thing that public radio stations like this try to prevent <i>has already happened</i> in the US. Which is bifurcation of news sources into partisan camps.<p>It&#x27;s just that American citizens don&#x27;t see a problem with partisan information or censorship as long as it is privately served.</text></comment> | <story><title>A No. 1 hit vanished from Poland’s charts – it’s not going quietly</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/arts/music/poland-chart-song-removed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_visgean</author><text>The same thing can&#x27;t really happen in US because US does not have state media. (Apart from funding Radio free Europe which can&#x27;t operate in US.)</text></item><item><author>etrabroline</author><text>It always rubs me the wrong way when US media criticizes other countries as if the same things don&#x27;t happen in the US. Why was Phil Donahue fired?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffpost.com&#x2F;entry&#x2F;phil-donahue-chris-matthews-msnbc-firing_n_2926643" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.huffpost.com&#x2F;entry&#x2F;phil-donahue-chris-matthews-m...</a><p>What about Peter Arnett?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.foxnews.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;nbc-severs-ties-with-journalist-peter-arnett" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.foxnews.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;nbc-severs-ties-with-journalis...</a><p>But I guess the Americans have &#x27;private&#x27; media where &#x27;market forces&#x27; prevent criticism of US government policy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tehjoker</author><text><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Manufacturing_Consent" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Manufacturing_Consent</a><p>For those that don&#x27;t like to read there&#x27;s a brief animated YouTube introduction voiced by Amy Goodman of &quot;Democracy Now!&quot;:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M</a><p>This theory, backed by enormous volumes of evidence and case studies, is very much worth a read. It explains how propaganda is instituted in the US without overt censorship.</text></comment> |
12,808,619 | 12,808,157 | 1 | 2 | 12,807,826 | train | <story><title>MacBook Pro</title><url>http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>FireBeyond</author><text>16GB max.<p>No iMac update.<p>No Mac Pro update.<p>Buyer&#x27;s Guide on MacRumors now:<p>&quot;iMac: Might as well buy. Nothing on the horizon.&quot;<p>&quot;Mac Pro: Buy. If you like paying 2013 prices for 2013 hardware.&quot;</text></item><item><author>npgatech</author><text>This event was by far the most disappointing Mac event in the history. A lot of the time was wasted in:<p>- Mildly funny jokes and comparison with 90&#x27;s technology.<p>- 90% of the talk was about the touch bar.<p>- Awful demos of Photoshop &amp; some cringy DJ.<p>I was hoping we would see:<p>- A new MacBook with all day battery life and touch bar, even thinner design. Ok, I understand that they are trying to consolidate their product line but the category of a web-browsing machine that is 12&quot;, super small design and an adequate processor is left without any update.<p>- A MacBook pro with some real innovation. They could just copy Microsoft with a detachable screen (oh but they would cannibalize iPad market), pen input, touch screen. But, instead we get this touchbar thing which is great but I am just disappointed that it is the only thing they have innovated here.<p>- Killed Macbook Air.<p>- No iMac update (!!!).<p>- No monitor announcement.<p>Microsoft really hit it out of the park yesterday. Apple&#x27;s entire presentation felt like they are trying to fill the 1.5 hours of time with bullshit.<p>Also, Panos Panay sounds like a genuine, authentic, passionate and knowledgeable whereas Jony Ive sounds like an Evangelical designer who feels &quot;fake&quot;. I don&#x27;t know how to explain it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>talmand</author><text>&gt;&gt; 16GB max.<p>I was going to say you were wrong because it was stated &quot;starts at 16GB&quot; near the end of the event. Checked the store and sure enough, I see no way to increase the RAM.<p>That&#x27;s just stupid.</text></comment> | <story><title>MacBook Pro</title><url>http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>FireBeyond</author><text>16GB max.<p>No iMac update.<p>No Mac Pro update.<p>Buyer&#x27;s Guide on MacRumors now:<p>&quot;iMac: Might as well buy. Nothing on the horizon.&quot;<p>&quot;Mac Pro: Buy. If you like paying 2013 prices for 2013 hardware.&quot;</text></item><item><author>npgatech</author><text>This event was by far the most disappointing Mac event in the history. A lot of the time was wasted in:<p>- Mildly funny jokes and comparison with 90&#x27;s technology.<p>- 90% of the talk was about the touch bar.<p>- Awful demos of Photoshop &amp; some cringy DJ.<p>I was hoping we would see:<p>- A new MacBook with all day battery life and touch bar, even thinner design. Ok, I understand that they are trying to consolidate their product line but the category of a web-browsing machine that is 12&quot;, super small design and an adequate processor is left without any update.<p>- A MacBook pro with some real innovation. They could just copy Microsoft with a detachable screen (oh but they would cannibalize iPad market), pen input, touch screen. But, instead we get this touchbar thing which is great but I am just disappointed that it is the only thing they have innovated here.<p>- Killed Macbook Air.<p>- No iMac update (!!!).<p>- No monitor announcement.<p>Microsoft really hit it out of the park yesterday. Apple&#x27;s entire presentation felt like they are trying to fill the 1.5 hours of time with bullshit.<p>Also, Panos Panay sounds like a genuine, authentic, passionate and knowledgeable whereas Jony Ive sounds like an Evangelical designer who feels &quot;fake&quot;. I don&#x27;t know how to explain it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yuhong</author><text>Looks like they still use LPDDR3, with no 32GB option even in the 15-inch. I wonder if they want to go to LPDDR4 when Intel supports it.</text></comment> |
28,525,375 | 28,525,523 | 1 | 2 | 28,523,878 | train | <story><title>AI Recognises Race in Medical Images</title><url>https://explainthispaper.com/ai-recognises-race-in-medical-images/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sillyquiet</author><text>IMO it&#x27;s because it&#x27;s very dubious the AI is doing what the paper is maintaining it&#x27;s doing.<p>People are not &#x27;race x&#x27; or &#x27;race y&#x27; biologically, as if race is some discrete set of features common to a whole population. Every individual has a set of biological features inherited from their ancestors which, theoretically, could include any or all so-called &#x27;races&#x27;. Human beings have a continuum of features that is heavily interlaced amongst all the &#x27;races&#x27;.<p>Putting it another way, if we were alien visitors, and had in front of us a representative sample of dead bodies from the entire world, we would be hard pressed to sort those bodies into &#x27;races&#x27; based on biological features.<p>For example, we currently use melanin levels as a key indicator of &#x27;race&#x27; today, but an alien, lacking the social context of the significance of say, high levels of melanin, may well consider it a secondary feature since its shared with otherwise unrelated people</text></item><item><author>throwaway894345</author><text>Please forgive me for asking a controversial question (particularly so early in the morning), but if there are all of these biological correlations with race, what does it mean that “race is a social construct”? Is the idea that black people have greater bone mineral density (per TFA) due to social or environmental causes (e.g., diet)? For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch egalitarian and I don’t see that changing either way.<p>EDIT: Really pleased with the largely constructive conversation in this thread. Was worried that this was going to be coopted as an ideological flame thread. Thanks for the insightful answers and good faith engagement. Keep up the good work!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phkahler</author><text>&gt;&gt; People are not &#x27;race x&#x27; or &#x27;race y&#x27; biologically, as if race is some discrete set of features common to a whole population.<p>Clearly people <i>are</i> biologically different based on race and the AI here is picking up on that. My kids orthodontist even told me they align teeth in part based on race. The Asian arch is flatter across the front for example. I asked about this because an engineer I worked with had a father in dentistry and told me my kid had &quot;German teeth in an Irish mouth&quot; which matched her ancestry, which he didn&#x27;t know - just said that in response to my description of the crowding.<p>So YES, races have biological differences. If not, we wouldn&#x27;t be able to tell where people are from. I get that it&#x27;s not cool to discriminate based on race, but it&#x27;s not OK or even practical to deny that it exists (see dentistry example above).</text></comment> | <story><title>AI Recognises Race in Medical Images</title><url>https://explainthispaper.com/ai-recognises-race-in-medical-images/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sillyquiet</author><text>IMO it&#x27;s because it&#x27;s very dubious the AI is doing what the paper is maintaining it&#x27;s doing.<p>People are not &#x27;race x&#x27; or &#x27;race y&#x27; biologically, as if race is some discrete set of features common to a whole population. Every individual has a set of biological features inherited from their ancestors which, theoretically, could include any or all so-called &#x27;races&#x27;. Human beings have a continuum of features that is heavily interlaced amongst all the &#x27;races&#x27;.<p>Putting it another way, if we were alien visitors, and had in front of us a representative sample of dead bodies from the entire world, we would be hard pressed to sort those bodies into &#x27;races&#x27; based on biological features.<p>For example, we currently use melanin levels as a key indicator of &#x27;race&#x27; today, but an alien, lacking the social context of the significance of say, high levels of melanin, may well consider it a secondary feature since its shared with otherwise unrelated people</text></item><item><author>throwaway894345</author><text>Please forgive me for asking a controversial question (particularly so early in the morning), but if there are all of these biological correlations with race, what does it mean that “race is a social construct”? Is the idea that black people have greater bone mineral density (per TFA) due to social or environmental causes (e.g., diet)? For what it’s worth, I’m a staunch egalitarian and I don’t see that changing either way.<p>EDIT: Really pleased with the largely constructive conversation in this thread. Was worried that this was going to be coopted as an ideological flame thread. Thanks for the insightful answers and good faith engagement. Keep up the good work!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>btbuildem</author><text>Aliens may as well sort us by the colour of our pants as soon as the colour of our skin, but let&#x27;s not pretend that such an obvious visual variation as skin tone would be overlooked.<p>White cat, tabby cat, grey cat, etc? We don&#x27;t try to say one sort of cat is better than other, but we can tell them apart very well.<p>Maybe what you&#x27;re saying is that the aliens would not have the same prejudices associated with that marker as we have.</text></comment> |
37,138,894 | 37,138,188 | 1 | 3 | 37,134,089 | train | <story><title>Selling open-source software</title><url>https://thenewstack.io/entrepreneurship-for-engineers-selling-open-source-software/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JohnMakin</author><text>A few problems with your comment -<p>1. 10% of your time doing devops work isn&#x27;t necessarily a waste - if 10% of that time is cheaper than enterprise offerings, then this is probably worth the resources, unless you are very short on talent.<p>2. You have an assumption laden in this comment that SaaS products eliminate the need for spending time on &quot;devops work.&quot; It can greatly reduce that time, but IME even administrating a SaaS product can come with a ton work - look at EKS, a &quot;managed&quot; kubernetes cluster, but often requires a lot of kubernetes know-how to properly configure and maintain.</text></item><item><author>omeze</author><text>The truth is that people who are fine operating and managing their own ElasticSearch&#x2F;Postgres&#x2F;Spark whatever cluster are not the people who will be buying the SaaS offering. Theres no point trying to convert those people, theyll convert themselves once they get tired of constantly upgrading and maintaining a non-differentiated piece of their business, or they’ll just be happy users who bring your tech stack to their next gig, where the buy vs self-host choice gets revisited.<p>The main problem is that many teams think they’re “that guy (or girl)” who can manage a complicated piece of infra as a small team and will be saving money. If you spend 10% of your time doing devops work, you spend 10% less time on your actual product (you might as well be binging netflix). A majority of these teams convert (IME) to a hosted offering once the right price and SLAs and DevExp are there. The only part of your sales pitch that matters to these teams is “this isnt worth your time to self host when we have a great offering thats cheaper and faster to get setup”. If you have a logo from a big co that has the talent to self host but are buying your product, then your work is done.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ncrmro</author><text>3. Managed solutions usually aren’t as configurable.</text></comment> | <story><title>Selling open-source software</title><url>https://thenewstack.io/entrepreneurship-for-engineers-selling-open-source-software/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JohnMakin</author><text>A few problems with your comment -<p>1. 10% of your time doing devops work isn&#x27;t necessarily a waste - if 10% of that time is cheaper than enterprise offerings, then this is probably worth the resources, unless you are very short on talent.<p>2. You have an assumption laden in this comment that SaaS products eliminate the need for spending time on &quot;devops work.&quot; It can greatly reduce that time, but IME even administrating a SaaS product can come with a ton work - look at EKS, a &quot;managed&quot; kubernetes cluster, but often requires a lot of kubernetes know-how to properly configure and maintain.</text></item><item><author>omeze</author><text>The truth is that people who are fine operating and managing their own ElasticSearch&#x2F;Postgres&#x2F;Spark whatever cluster are not the people who will be buying the SaaS offering. Theres no point trying to convert those people, theyll convert themselves once they get tired of constantly upgrading and maintaining a non-differentiated piece of their business, or they’ll just be happy users who bring your tech stack to their next gig, where the buy vs self-host choice gets revisited.<p>The main problem is that many teams think they’re “that guy (or girl)” who can manage a complicated piece of infra as a small team and will be saving money. If you spend 10% of your time doing devops work, you spend 10% less time on your actual product (you might as well be binging netflix). A majority of these teams convert (IME) to a hosted offering once the right price and SLAs and DevExp are there. The only part of your sales pitch that matters to these teams is “this isnt worth your time to self host when we have a great offering thats cheaper and faster to get setup”. If you have a logo from a big co that has the talent to self host but are buying your product, then your work is done.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>omeze</author><text>Both your counterpoints are true, I didnt want to sprinkle the word “marginal cost” everywhere (marginal devops cost of buy vs self host). And ofc I agree, not all saas offerings are the same, EKS is fairly meh as far as setup and time savings.</text></comment> |
8,875,038 | 8,875,042 | 1 | 2 | 8,874,811 | train | <story><title>Speaking While Female</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/speaking-while-female.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drzaiusapelord</author><text>This also opens the door to having one or two self-promoting types control the conversation by commenting early on and to never stop talking. I find its helpful to interrupt people sometimes as it helps cut the BS in meetings.<p>I doubt there&#x27;s an easy fix here. My take is that there&#x27;s a larger aspect not addressed in the article: women simply aren&#x27;t socialized to be socially aggressive. The same way women often won&#x27;t negotiate salary and then we wring our hands over women&#x27;s salaries. How about of instead changing everything to suite these women, we encourage them to be more socially aggressive? Its not like these things are pleasant or easy for men either. I feel like if I didn&#x27;t learn how to act this way, I wouldn&#x27;t be competitive at my job. The same way I see loads of shy male techies who never speak up and don&#x27;t contribute much and don&#x27;t end up promoted or appreciated. I think its a skill that can be learned and things like &quot;oh I&#x27;m INTJ, oh I&#x27;m a woman, etc&quot; are excuses. Why aren&#x27;t some people motivated to learn the proper social skills? As a previous shy person, I know that this is just a learn-able skill.<p>I don&#x27;t think we need to make meetings longer and &quot;nicer&quot; and if we did, it would just lead to resentment and fleeing of talent to company B where that talent can thrive without a lot of politically correct baggage holding them back. Now company A is a bunch of quiet milquetoast types unable to engage in argumentation and eventually not be competitive against a more aggressive company.<p>Lastly, a lot of the more quiet people I&#x27;ve worked with are so because they just don&#x27;t have a lot of good ideas. They&#x27;re bureaucrats and desk jockeys or are ultrafocused on their little niche of the world and add the same things over and over regardless of context. Yeah, the TPS reports might be slow to load, but this isn&#x27;t the time or place for it, yet the TPS manager has literally nothing else to add. Maybe those without much to add should be quiet.<p>The Harrison Bergeron-ing of all things really isn&#x27;t the way to go. I really wish more people understood that.</text></item><item><author>sosuke</author><text>&quot;When female executives spoke more than their peers, both men and women punished them with 14 percent lower ratings.&quot;<p>I&#x27;ve seen similar comments before and even going as far as saying women were harder on women than men when moving up in a career. It&#x27;s deeper and more complex than men versus women. I&#x27;ve heard my share of anecdotal stories from women who say the same thing, women are their harshest critique and most difficult challenge. It seems daunting, how do you even begin to change that.<p>&quot;He announced to the writers that he was instituting a no-interruption rule while anyone — male or female — was pitching.&quot;<p>That is excellent, and sad, that we have to go back to grade school etiquette to let people find a voice. It&#x27;s true though, if a team member isn&#x27;t trusted to have a voice they shouldn&#x27;t be a part of the conversation. If they are a part of the conversation they should have the respect of the rest of the team enough for them to shut up and listen, then respond. Spirit sticks!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frandroid</author><text>&gt; women simply aren&#x27;t socialized to be socially aggressive<p>The article makes the point that women are socially penalized when they are aggressive. It&#x27;s not a lack of socialization into aggressiveness, but rather an active socialization into passiveness.</text></comment> | <story><title>Speaking While Female</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/speaking-while-female.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drzaiusapelord</author><text>This also opens the door to having one or two self-promoting types control the conversation by commenting early on and to never stop talking. I find its helpful to interrupt people sometimes as it helps cut the BS in meetings.<p>I doubt there&#x27;s an easy fix here. My take is that there&#x27;s a larger aspect not addressed in the article: women simply aren&#x27;t socialized to be socially aggressive. The same way women often won&#x27;t negotiate salary and then we wring our hands over women&#x27;s salaries. How about of instead changing everything to suite these women, we encourage them to be more socially aggressive? Its not like these things are pleasant or easy for men either. I feel like if I didn&#x27;t learn how to act this way, I wouldn&#x27;t be competitive at my job. The same way I see loads of shy male techies who never speak up and don&#x27;t contribute much and don&#x27;t end up promoted or appreciated. I think its a skill that can be learned and things like &quot;oh I&#x27;m INTJ, oh I&#x27;m a woman, etc&quot; are excuses. Why aren&#x27;t some people motivated to learn the proper social skills? As a previous shy person, I know that this is just a learn-able skill.<p>I don&#x27;t think we need to make meetings longer and &quot;nicer&quot; and if we did, it would just lead to resentment and fleeing of talent to company B where that talent can thrive without a lot of politically correct baggage holding them back. Now company A is a bunch of quiet milquetoast types unable to engage in argumentation and eventually not be competitive against a more aggressive company.<p>Lastly, a lot of the more quiet people I&#x27;ve worked with are so because they just don&#x27;t have a lot of good ideas. They&#x27;re bureaucrats and desk jockeys or are ultrafocused on their little niche of the world and add the same things over and over regardless of context. Yeah, the TPS reports might be slow to load, but this isn&#x27;t the time or place for it, yet the TPS manager has literally nothing else to add. Maybe those without much to add should be quiet.<p>The Harrison Bergeron-ing of all things really isn&#x27;t the way to go. I really wish more people understood that.</text></item><item><author>sosuke</author><text>&quot;When female executives spoke more than their peers, both men and women punished them with 14 percent lower ratings.&quot;<p>I&#x27;ve seen similar comments before and even going as far as saying women were harder on women than men when moving up in a career. It&#x27;s deeper and more complex than men versus women. I&#x27;ve heard my share of anecdotal stories from women who say the same thing, women are their harshest critique and most difficult challenge. It seems daunting, how do you even begin to change that.<p>&quot;He announced to the writers that he was instituting a no-interruption rule while anyone — male or female — was pitching.&quot;<p>That is excellent, and sad, that we have to go back to grade school etiquette to let people find a voice. It&#x27;s true though, if a team member isn&#x27;t trusted to have a voice they shouldn&#x27;t be a part of the conversation. If they are a part of the conversation they should have the respect of the rest of the team enough for them to shut up and listen, then respond. Spirit sticks!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DanBC</author><text>&gt; Its not like these things are pleasant or easy for men either.<p>So the system doesn&#x27;t work for women, nor for minority groups, nor for many men. Doesn&#x27;t that suggest that we should be trying to fix the system?</text></comment> |
19,575,507 | 19,575,415 | 1 | 2 | 19,573,893 | train | <story><title>Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report</title><url>http://www.ecaa.gov.et/documents/20435/0/Preliminary+Report+B737-800MAX+%2C%28ET-AVJ%29.pdf/4c65422d-5e4f-4689-9c58-d7af1ee17f3e</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Rooster61</author><text>&gt; The crew performed runaway stabilizer checklist and put the stab trim cutout switch to cutout position and confirmed that the manual trim operation was not working.<p>This is very damning to Boeing. It&#x27;s precisely the procedure they prescribed and intended to mitigate possible MCAS caused trim runaway. In light of the fact that they put this in place as a justification for moving the engines forward without reclassifying the plane, I don&#x27;t see how they can get around fault here.<p>What a tragedy.<p>I can&#x27;t imagine the emotion those pilots must have felt after attempting to do exactly what they were told to do to keep the aircraft in the air, only to have the nose lurch back downwards. Godspeed, gentlemen. It wasn&#x27;t your fault.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fgonzag</author><text>This means that Boeing is now 100% liable for the crash, as there was nothing the airline could&#x27;ve done in this scenario.<p>It also means that the aircraft will have to be re-designed and re-classified before it ever flies again (it&#x27;s now a very clear design error, not a training or communication error)</text></comment> | <story><title>Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX Investigation Preliminary Report</title><url>http://www.ecaa.gov.et/documents/20435/0/Preliminary+Report+B737-800MAX+%2C%28ET-AVJ%29.pdf/4c65422d-5e4f-4689-9c58-d7af1ee17f3e</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Rooster61</author><text>&gt; The crew performed runaway stabilizer checklist and put the stab trim cutout switch to cutout position and confirmed that the manual trim operation was not working.<p>This is very damning to Boeing. It&#x27;s precisely the procedure they prescribed and intended to mitigate possible MCAS caused trim runaway. In light of the fact that they put this in place as a justification for moving the engines forward without reclassifying the plane, I don&#x27;t see how they can get around fault here.<p>What a tragedy.<p>I can&#x27;t imagine the emotion those pilots must have felt after attempting to do exactly what they were told to do to keep the aircraft in the air, only to have the nose lurch back downwards. Godspeed, gentlemen. It wasn&#x27;t your fault.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smaili</author><text>Just out of curiosity, will there actually be any punishments handed out beyond just a slap on the wrist? Or is Boeing far too large of a corp to take on?</text></comment> |
28,250,893 | 28,250,160 | 1 | 3 | 28,248,945 | train | <story><title>The mutation that helps Delta spread</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02275-2</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jmfldn</author><text>Purely anecdotal but I&#x27;m double vaccinated (Astra Zeneca) and I caught Covid recently. It was probably Delta as 99% of cases in UK are. I know of quite a few vaccinated friends who&#x27;ve caught it recently too. Mainly AZ I think but one was Pfizer (single jabbed).<p>Anyway, none of us had severe illness although I felt pretty rough for a few days like I had a really bad cold and smell went for a week completely. I was basically fine though and everyone else I know is too who got it recently. The point is that it does seem like this Delta variant breaks through regularly and it does seem (again, purely anecdotal) like it&#x27;s v infectious. Of course the thing to emphasise is that, whilst it might break through, the vaccine still stops serious illness to a high degree. It does highlight however the need to not be complacent. Vaccines don&#x27;t seem to be stopping the spread right now as much as you might think, and the high number of cases combined with high vaccination rates is an obvious selection pressure. More variants are inevitably coming and it does seem like this virus is bucking the trend and not necessarily becoming less potent despite increased tranmissability in some variants<p>My conclusion is that, whilst I welcome the UK being sort of &quot;back to normal&quot;, let&#x27;s keep up the mask wearing, hygiene standards and so on. It&#x27;s a balance but I sense things are getting a bit too lax. I&#x27;m not overly anxious but let&#x27;s stick to the precautionary principle a bit more.</text></comment> | <story><title>The mutation that helps Delta spread</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02275-2</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hutzlibu</author><text>I see the sentiment here expressed, that Covid is far from over. To be honest, I stopped following news since being fully vaccinated some time ago, so I am kind of ignorant here.<p>Is the main problem, the unvaccinated, or that the Delta (and co.) variants are still, too dangerous for vaccinated people? Or is it the fear, that they will get more dangerous?</text></comment> |
26,628,117 | 26,627,460 | 1 | 2 | 26,625,398 | train | <story><title>Hello, HPy</title><url>https://hpyproject.org/blog/posts/2021/03/hello-hpy/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dmw_ng</author><text>This looks like the holy grail of extension development, effectively a Python runtime HAL, it&#x27;s wildly exciting. Getting anything to work optimally on PyPy and CPython more or less means writing it twice. CFFI overhead on CPython really sucks for anything where the runtime of the wrapped function does not eclipse the overhead of the binding. HPy looks like a fantastic approach.<p>Only complaint from a quick scan -- carrying over that horrid PyArg_Parse() API. It&#x27;s huge, needs varargs, isn&#x27;t type safe, repeatedly rebuilds strings to look them up in kwargs, and isn&#x27;t even all that convenient to use. Also, if you haven&#x27;t dealt with a SEGV due to PyArg_Parse() before, it means you probably have never tried to write an extension<p>PyPy will become about 1000x more practical if something like this ever makes it into Cython. That would make it easy to bring over huge swathes of existing extensions like lxml.</text></comment> | <story><title>Hello, HPy</title><url>https://hpyproject.org/blog/posts/2021/03/hello-hpy/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>chrisseaton</author><text>We have this same problem in Ruby - implementing the Ruby C extension API if you aren&#x27;t exactly the same as the reference Ruby implementation is extremely challenging. I think Charlie Nutter proposed something like this for Ruby in the past <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;headius&#x2F;xni" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;headius&#x2F;xni</a>.</text></comment> |
7,154,149 | 7,153,961 | 1 | 2 | 7,153,671 | train | <story><title>Microsoft Said to Be Preparing to Make Satya Nadella CEO</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/microsoft-said-to-be-preparing-to-make-satya-nadella-ceo.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jedmeyers</author><text>My personal opinion is that for Microsoft this is a much better solution than to hire an external CEO with an MBA and no background in software&#x2F;technology. If the news are true then I wish all the luck to Mr. Nadella.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dm8</author><text>I don&#x27;t think BillG would have allowed hiring someone with an MBA and no background in software&#x2F;technology. He is still the majority shareholder (from what I&#x27;ve read) and sits on the board.</text></comment> | <story><title>Microsoft Said to Be Preparing to Make Satya Nadella CEO</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/microsoft-said-to-be-preparing-to-make-satya-nadella-ceo.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jedmeyers</author><text>My personal opinion is that for Microsoft this is a much better solution than to hire an external CEO with an MBA and no background in software&#x2F;technology. If the news are true then I wish all the luck to Mr. Nadella.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zdw</author><text>Why? My experience has been that handing the reins tech companies over to accountants or &quot;business people&quot; has been fair to disastrous more frequently than handing them over to tech people with some business training.</text></comment> |
7,184,911 | 7,184,155 | 1 | 2 | 7,183,793 | train | <story><title>67 Signals hasn't changed a thing</title><url>http://67signals.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>coldtea</author><text>&quot;Making simple software and charging heaps because we are hip and edgy...&quot;<p>Every time I see things such as these I think: 20-something, doesn&#x27;t understand money ($20&#x2F;month seems &quot;too much&quot;), doesn&#x27;t understand business, not much sense of humor either, mostly pissed about other being succesful...<p>The kind of people who write M$ with a dollar sign.</text></comment> | <story><title>67 Signals hasn't changed a thing</title><url>http://67signals.com/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nswanberg</author><text>This is too mean and angry to be a good parody. This one is better: <a href="http://friedisms.tumblr.com/page/4" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;friedisms.tumblr.com&#x2F;page&#x2F;4</a> (the one about monkeys is still my favorite).</text></comment> |
15,459,743 | 15,457,921 | 1 | 3 | 15,457,230 | train | <story><title>Byzantium Hard Fork Announcement</title><url>https://blog.ethereum.org/2017/10/12/byzantium-hf-announcement/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>runeks</author><text>&gt; Delay of the ice age &#x2F; difficulty bomb by 1 year, and reduction of block reward from 5 to 3 ether<p>I wonder if the planned switch to proof-of-stake is ever going to happen.<p>In any case, what&#x27;s the point of continuously postponing a pre-programmed difficulty bomb (via a hard for), when miners can just remove this part from the code and continue with that fork if they wish? Because of this, it seems like it doesn&#x27;t do much difference compared to just switching to PoS via a hard fork whenever it&#x27;s ready. I mean, if miners really want to continue with PoW, removing those couple of lines, that define the difficulty time bomb, from the Ethereum code surely won&#x27;t be a problem, right?</text></comment> | <story><title>Byzantium Hard Fork Announcement</title><url>https://blog.ethereum.org/2017/10/12/byzantium-hf-announcement/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Gaelan</author><text>What’s this about an “ice age”?</text></comment> |
19,928,332 | 19,927,215 | 1 | 2 | 19,926,765 | train | <story><title>MyCPU – Homebrew Computer from Discrete Logic Gates</title><url>http://mycpu.thtec.org/www-mycpu-eu/index1.htm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>HappyJoy</author><text>Ben Eater has a most excellent Youtube series in the same vein.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eater.net&#x2F;8bit" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eater.net&#x2F;8bit</a><p>He even sells a kit with all parts and schematics included. It&#x27;s easily one of my favorite projects of all time and has inspired me to continue learning more.<p>It&#x27;s not close to MyCPU&#x27;s level of complexity but is great to get you started.</text></comment> | <story><title>MyCPU – Homebrew Computer from Discrete Logic Gates</title><url>http://mycpu.thtec.org/www-mycpu-eu/index1.htm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>illys</author><text>Amazing! A computer made without microprocessor... or a processor made of TTL circuits.<p>He has remade a system similar to the core of the great 1970&#x27;s Xerox Alto &#x2F; Xerox Star series :-)<p>I never thought someone would remake a processor this way. I love that kind of madness !<p>[edit: use the site backup if it fails to load: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mycpu.thtec.org&#x2F;www-mycpu-eu&#x2F;index1.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mycpu.thtec.org&#x2F;www-mycpu-eu&#x2F;index1.htm</a> ]</text></comment> |
25,352,829 | 25,352,756 | 1 | 2 | 25,352,088 | train | <story><title>80% of musicians earn less than £200 a year from streaming</title><url>https://www.nme.com/news/music/82-per-cent-of-musicians-earn-less-than-200-a-year-from-streaming-2833510</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jonplackett</author><text>The new system only works because smaller bands are subsidising the bigger ones.<p>For example. I only listen to smaller indie bands on Spotify for a month. I give Spotify my £10 for the month.<p>Does my £10 go to those smaller bands? No. It gets given to Lady Ga Ga because she got 100 bazzillion listens that month. Even though I never listen to her music.<p>Spotify should work out who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividing by number of plays.<p>It would be fairer, but it would mean the bigger bands earn less, and expose the fact that streaming really isn’t making anyone enough money.<p>How could it when I’m now paying only £10 a month for what used to cost hundreds?<p>But it’s better than piracy!</text></item><item><author>woeirua</author><text>The fundamental problem isn&#x27;t streaming, as much as it is that natural systems follow power law distributions. There will <i>always</i> be superstars that make the majority of the money, and tons and tons of wannabe artists that make almost nothing. That was just as true 20 years ago as it is today. If anything, streaming makes it possible to find those smaller artists and sample what they&#x27;re making without having to go to some esoteric store and pay $20 for an album that you&#x27;ve never heard before.<p>The system may be broken, but I&#x27;m not sure going back to the old system is the right approach.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GuB-42</author><text>How often do you listen to Spotify?<p>If you listen to smaller indie bands more than the average person listens to Lady Ga Ga, the indies artist you listen to actually get more than £10 worth and Lady Ga Ga gets less.<p>Some people think it is less fair than a &quot;one subscription one vote&quot; system. It is up to debate, but the payment system does not favor celebrities, network effects combined with good marketing do.</text></comment> | <story><title>80% of musicians earn less than £200 a year from streaming</title><url>https://www.nme.com/news/music/82-per-cent-of-musicians-earn-less-than-200-a-year-from-streaming-2833510</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jonplackett</author><text>The new system only works because smaller bands are subsidising the bigger ones.<p>For example. I only listen to smaller indie bands on Spotify for a month. I give Spotify my £10 for the month.<p>Does my £10 go to those smaller bands? No. It gets given to Lady Ga Ga because she got 100 bazzillion listens that month. Even though I never listen to her music.<p>Spotify should work out who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividing by number of plays.<p>It would be fairer, but it would mean the bigger bands earn less, and expose the fact that streaming really isn’t making anyone enough money.<p>How could it when I’m now paying only £10 a month for what used to cost hundreds?<p>But it’s better than piracy!</text></item><item><author>woeirua</author><text>The fundamental problem isn&#x27;t streaming, as much as it is that natural systems follow power law distributions. There will <i>always</i> be superstars that make the majority of the money, and tons and tons of wannabe artists that make almost nothing. That was just as true 20 years ago as it is today. If anything, streaming makes it possible to find those smaller artists and sample what they&#x27;re making without having to go to some esoteric store and pay $20 for an album that you&#x27;ve never heard before.<p>The system may be broken, but I&#x27;m not sure going back to the old system is the right approach.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kazinator</author><text>&gt; <i>Spotify should work put who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividing by number of plays.</i><p>Representation based on number of plays<p>Problem is, suppose you listen to almost nothing but some indie band all month, and you happen to land on Lady Ga Ga just once or twice by accident somehow. Now since proportional representation by number of raw plays has been replaced by number of deduplicated plays tabulated to the artist, £5 goes to Gaga.<p>Squashing repetitions probably won&#x27;t make much difference, because some people who like unpopular music listen to it repeatedly like crazy, just like people who like popular music. The big stars are not winning due to more plays; it&#x27;s really due to just being more popular.<p>Suppose every Spotify subscriber streams music 24 hours a day. Then is it still unfair to go by plays?<p>By the way, no mater what, I suspect out of any £10 subscription, something like £9.95 goes to Spotify itself.</text></comment> |
24,356,292 | 24,356,174 | 1 | 3 | 24,355,229 | train | <story><title>Intel Launches 11th Gen Core Tiger Lake</title><url>https://www.anandtech.com/print/16063/intel-launches-11th-gen-core-tiger-lake-processors-and-evo-branding</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dougmwne</author><text>From a quick read, in case anyone is wondering, this is built on the latest-gen 10nm process which is a refinement on the previous 10nm process. Intel&#x27;s goal was to focus on clock increases, so the instruction per clock is apparently not much changed. From looking at the tables, the whole line of processors appear to have nicely improved one core max clock speeds, which should hopefully help single core performance, which isn&#x27;t something that has been increasing much lately.<p>Anecdote: a family member and software dev just bought the latest macbook pro coming from about an 8 year old macbook pro. Apparently he doesn&#x27;t perceive much real world performance difference between the 2 machines. He said single core synthetic benchmarks were higher, but not by much.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>&gt; Anecdote: a family member and software dev just bought the latest macbook pro coming from about an 8 year old macbook pro. Apparently he doesn&#x27;t perceive much real world performance difference between the 2 machines. He said single core synthetic benchmarks were higher, but not by much.<p>It really depends on the workload. My old MacBook Pro feels the same as the newer model 98% of the time that I&#x27;m using it, but I really appreciate the extra RAM and double the core count when I need it.<p>Reducing build times from 30 seconds down to 15 seconds doesn&#x27;t sound like much when you&#x27;re not pressing the compile button very often, but it really does help improve my engagement and focus.<p>The newer graphics cards are also much better at handling large and high-resolution external monitors. The difference isn&#x27;t pronounced if you&#x27;re just using the built-in laptop screen, but start using multiple external 4K+ monitors and the faster GPU starts to shine.</text></comment> | <story><title>Intel Launches 11th Gen Core Tiger Lake</title><url>https://www.anandtech.com/print/16063/intel-launches-11th-gen-core-tiger-lake-processors-and-evo-branding</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dougmwne</author><text>From a quick read, in case anyone is wondering, this is built on the latest-gen 10nm process which is a refinement on the previous 10nm process. Intel&#x27;s goal was to focus on clock increases, so the instruction per clock is apparently not much changed. From looking at the tables, the whole line of processors appear to have nicely improved one core max clock speeds, which should hopefully help single core performance, which isn&#x27;t something that has been increasing much lately.<p>Anecdote: a family member and software dev just bought the latest macbook pro coming from about an 8 year old macbook pro. Apparently he doesn&#x27;t perceive much real world performance difference between the 2 machines. He said single core synthetic benchmarks were higher, but not by much.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joakleaf</author><text>I agree. I don&#x27;t feel much difference between the 15&quot; MB-Pro i7 4-core from 2014 and the i9 8-core from 2019. The i9 really isn&#x27;t noticeable faster on single core. Instead it gets hotter and its fans starts sooner. So I recommend keeping the old one if you have it.</text></comment> |
18,067,190 | 18,065,738 | 1 | 3 | 18,064,537 | train | <story><title>Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies</title><url>https://twitter.com/ctavan/status/1044282084020441088</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drawkbox</author><text>Another confirmation that engineers and product developers are no longer in control at Google.<p>Engineering and product first is how Google won the game initially, very easy to forget that when the money rolls in massively and the power structures move away from those driving forces.<p>Microsoft already went through this engineering&#x2F;product growth to bizdev&#x2F;marketing control to stagnation and is already in the return to engineering&#x2F;product first phase. Basically their own Ballmer era is what Google is entering.<p>Bizdev + marketing are hugely important, but the products and engineering need to be the focus. It is much easier to bizdev and market a product and engineering led system&#x2F;focus, though success through this is always forgotten when massive success comes around because engineering&#x2F;research and development are hard to quantify and put metrics to which the power structures move away from.<p>Let&#x27;s hope there are factions of engineering&#x2F;product focused people in Google that can gain back control.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Pxtl</author><text>I assume this is the engineering at work.<p>&quot;Okay, users are confused by how they&#x27;re logged into Google but not Chrome, or Chrome but not Google - let&#x27;s make them one and the same&quot;.<p>&quot;Okay, but once you&#x27;re logged into Chrome now, every post we check to see if we have the Google cookies to keep that sync... so that means when you clear the cookies the Google ones will automagically reappear&quot;<p>&quot;Ugh, let&#x27;s just notify the user that clearing the cookies won&#x27;t clear the Google ones&quot;<p>&quot;Yeah, that works&quot;.<p>Come on, we&#x27;re all developers here, we all know how these conversations work.</text></comment> | <story><title>Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies</title><url>https://twitter.com/ctavan/status/1044282084020441088</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drawkbox</author><text>Another confirmation that engineers and product developers are no longer in control at Google.<p>Engineering and product first is how Google won the game initially, very easy to forget that when the money rolls in massively and the power structures move away from those driving forces.<p>Microsoft already went through this engineering&#x2F;product growth to bizdev&#x2F;marketing control to stagnation and is already in the return to engineering&#x2F;product first phase. Basically their own Ballmer era is what Google is entering.<p>Bizdev + marketing are hugely important, but the products and engineering need to be the focus. It is much easier to bizdev and market a product and engineering led system&#x2F;focus, though success through this is always forgotten when massive success comes around because engineering&#x2F;research and development are hard to quantify and put metrics to which the power structures move away from.<p>Let&#x27;s hope there are factions of engineering&#x2F;product focused people in Google that can gain back control.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mannykannot</author><text>The idea that technical people are all impeccably ethical is not very plausible. Consider the scientists who promoted the claim that smoking was harmless long after it clearly was not, the engineers who concocted VW&#x27;s diesel-emissions fraud, and the developers who produced Madoff&#x27;s fake accounting. And, of course, this particular deception is hardly the first fall from grace on the internet.</text></comment> |
4,849,198 | 4,849,272 | 1 | 2 | 4,847,468 | train | <story><title>Tor exit node operator raided in Austria</title><url>http://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/6283/raided-for-running-a-tor-exit-accepting-donations-for-legal-expenses</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomku</author><text>It seems like a lot of people are objecting to the raid/seizure itself in addition to the possibility of conviction, so I have a question. Is it reasonable for the police to investigate an exit node operator for traffic coming from his node, even if they know he's an exit node operator?<p>The way I see it, it's their job* to determine whether the traffic in question was relayed, or whether it was the exit node operator himself generating that traffic. In an ideal world, they could just call him up and ask nicely - but if he was actually guilty, he'd say "No, no way it was me!" and immediately start destroying any evidence. On the other hand, raiding someone's home or server rack and confiscating all of their computers isn't a great solution if most exit node operators are not guilty themselves.<p>I'm not aware of a good solution that avoids inconveniencing exit node operators without giving them some kind of blanket immunity to investigation that goes beyond just relayed traffic.<p>* - I'm aware that this might be impossible, but you can't know whether it will be ahead of time. It's possible that they could raid him and find no proof, even if he's guilty. It's also possible that they could raid him and find exactly what they were looking for. Like many investigation tactics, there's no guaranteed payoff.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>In the strict public policy sense you could argue the raid/seizure either way; The pro-raid argument would go "This activity harms society by allowing criminal activity which is part of the economics of exploiting children, thus it is right for the state to step in and make these raids to identify and contain those threats." Then you could make the anti-raid argument, "The economic disruption of taking a legitimate business off-line and possibly causing irreparable harm to innocent citizens does not warrant such a drastic measure without solid evidence of complicity in the commission of a crime."<p>In the United States there is an analogous situation which is that of the 'high speed pursuit.' In the pursuit situation the officers have strong reason to believe the driver of a vehicle was involved in a crime and seek to arrest them. The driver of the vehicle doesn't want to be arrested and so they drive away quickly. If the officers give chase, they greatly increase the chance that harm will come to innocent bystanders. If they don't give chase they risk losing their suspect. Generally those debates come down to things like "what crime might they have committed?" and if it was failure to stop for a right turn, that is seen as not being as 'reasonable to chase' as hit and run vehicular manslaughter.<p>I tend to fall into the "Do the police work to figure out who the crooks are and if you need the co-operation of an end-node provider then get a warrant to compel that co-operation." But I also have spoken to officers who feel that such restrictions are 'red tape' and keep them from doing the job they were paid to do.<p>In this particular case we don't have the police version of the story. Perhaps they think this guy is complicit? Did they raid/seize any other end nodes? Did they have a warrant and what did it say? Had this person been involved in other questionable activities? "Presumption of innocence" is not a principle that extends outside of US borders so its always difficult to contextualize police action in other countries to Americans who take their constitution for granted.</text></comment> | <story><title>Tor exit node operator raided in Austria</title><url>http://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/6283/raided-for-running-a-tor-exit-accepting-donations-for-legal-expenses</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tomku</author><text>It seems like a lot of people are objecting to the raid/seizure itself in addition to the possibility of conviction, so I have a question. Is it reasonable for the police to investigate an exit node operator for traffic coming from his node, even if they know he's an exit node operator?<p>The way I see it, it's their job* to determine whether the traffic in question was relayed, or whether it was the exit node operator himself generating that traffic. In an ideal world, they could just call him up and ask nicely - but if he was actually guilty, he'd say "No, no way it was me!" and immediately start destroying any evidence. On the other hand, raiding someone's home or server rack and confiscating all of their computers isn't a great solution if most exit node operators are not guilty themselves.<p>I'm not aware of a good solution that avoids inconveniencing exit node operators without giving them some kind of blanket immunity to investigation that goes beyond just relayed traffic.<p>* - I'm aware that this might be impossible, but you can't know whether it will be ahead of time. It's possible that they could raid him and find no proof, even if he's guilty. It's also possible that they could raid him and find exactly what they were looking for. Like many investigation tactics, there's no guaranteed payoff.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AnthonyMouse</author><text>&#62;Is it reasonable for the police to investigate an exit node operator for traffic coming from his node, even if they know he's an exit node operator?<p>Realistically, no. It's a fishing expedition -- it's like raiding the phone company's offices when someone has used a prepaid burner phone because they have the ability to spoof the IP address or phone number of any of their unidentifiable customers. There is no more reason to suspect that the exit node operator is at fault than any other ISP. Especially given the amount of harassment these raids cause for the victims -- can you reasonably state that the police should be able to enter a telco hotel and shut down and confiscate all of the equipment because not all of the traffic passing through it can be traced to an identifiable source? If not then what makes this different?<p>&#62;I'm not aware of a good solution that avoids inconveniencing exit node operators without giving them some kind of blanket immunity to investigation that goes beyond just relayed traffic.<p>The solution is to rely on less disruptive investigative means until sufficient evidence is available to determine whether the exit node operator is the likely source of the traffic. For example, get a warrant and wiretap their phone and email and see if they're trafficking in illicit materials through those channels. Have an undercover cop chat them up and set up a sting if they're doing something illegal. Standard police work.</text></comment> |
15,495,504 | 15,494,645 | 1 | 3 | 15,492,410 | train | <story><title>Hotswapping Haskell</title><url>http://simonmar.github.io/posts/2017-10-17-hotswapping-haskell.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teraflop</author><text>I don&#x27;t want to knock the technical achievement here -- it&#x27;s a cool hack -- but I&#x27;m really surprised that it was deemed to be the best choice for a production system.<p>In the first place, &quot;we can&#x27;t compile our code on every change because it takes too long&quot; is a really awful situation to be in. Are developers not building and testing their changes before deploying them? Can Facebook not afford a continuous integration system that can run builds in parallel? It sounds like this problem is only happening because the application is a giant monolith, but for some reason splitting it up would slow down development even more... I&#x27;m not sure I buy that reasoning.<p>The article says that &quot;Haskell’s strict type system means we’re able to confidently push new code knowing that we can’t crash the server&quot;, which is a real stretch. In addition to all of the usual ways a computation can diverge, this hot-swapping system adds a whole new variety of failure modes. The article talks about how the code needs to be carefully audited to prevent memory leaks, but it doesn&#x27;t even mention the weird things that can happen when mutable state is preserved across code modifications. Debugging is a pain when your data structures can get into states that aren&#x27;t reachable with any single version of the code. (This is a well-known issue in Linux kernel live-patching, for instance.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JonCoens</author><text>I should have emphasized the speed of deployment being a first order concern more. We certainly can (and do) build our code for every change, but not at the speed that we want to be updating.<p>We use a monorepo for all of the benefits it has, and deploying fast business logic updates this way helps mitigate one of its downsides (particularly when you&#x27;ve maximally parallelized the build). I&#x27;ve found <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;danluu.com&#x2F;monorepo&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;danluu.com&#x2F;monorepo&#x2F;</a> to give a quick overview of how chopping up the repo would have separate downsides.<p>The section about &quot;Sticky Shared Objects&quot; speaks directly to mutable state across code modifications, just with a Haskell-minded focus.</text></comment> | <story><title>Hotswapping Haskell</title><url>http://simonmar.github.io/posts/2017-10-17-hotswapping-haskell.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teraflop</author><text>I don&#x27;t want to knock the technical achievement here -- it&#x27;s a cool hack -- but I&#x27;m really surprised that it was deemed to be the best choice for a production system.<p>In the first place, &quot;we can&#x27;t compile our code on every change because it takes too long&quot; is a really awful situation to be in. Are developers not building and testing their changes before deploying them? Can Facebook not afford a continuous integration system that can run builds in parallel? It sounds like this problem is only happening because the application is a giant monolith, but for some reason splitting it up would slow down development even more... I&#x27;m not sure I buy that reasoning.<p>The article says that &quot;Haskell’s strict type system means we’re able to confidently push new code knowing that we can’t crash the server&quot;, which is a real stretch. In addition to all of the usual ways a computation can diverge, this hot-swapping system adds a whole new variety of failure modes. The article talks about how the code needs to be carefully audited to prevent memory leaks, but it doesn&#x27;t even mention the weird things that can happen when mutable state is preserved across code modifications. Debugging is a pain when your data structures can get into states that aren&#x27;t reachable with any single version of the code. (This is a well-known issue in Linux kernel live-patching, for instance.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wyager</author><text>While I agree a slow build indicates a problem with their build infra, haskell’s purity and type system <i>do</i> rule out issues with mutable State (presumably there isn’t any in the hot-swapped module) and invalid states (the type system prevents invalid states from being constructed, given the way they have a fixed hot-cold API).<p>The article describes the hot-swapped module as containing frequently changing business logic, which sounds like it’s something they can probably do via an interface with well-constrained or no mutability.</text></comment> |
29,070,078 | 29,068,107 | 1 | 2 | 29,046,808 | train | <story><title>First confirmed hatchings of two California condor chicks from unfertilized eggs</title><url>https://stories.sandiegozoo.org/2021/10/28/san-diego-zoo-wildlife-alliance-conservation-scientists-report-first-confirmed-hatchings-of-two-california-condor-chicks-from-unfertilized-eggs/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>penneyd</author><text>This article has a bit more detail and describes the health issues these birds experienced<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2021&#x2F;10&#x2F;california-condors-are-capable-virgin-birth&#x2F;620517&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2021&#x2F;10&#x2F;californ...</a><p>&quot;both of the condors did have some documented health issues. SB260, a male hatched at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in 2001, died two years later after being released into the wild—he was always small and did not integrate well with the wild birds. SB517, a male hatched at Los Angeles Zoo in 2009, had a curved spine and trouble walking. He was never released into the wild and died in captivity at about age eight.&quot;</text></comment> | <story><title>First confirmed hatchings of two California condor chicks from unfertilized eggs</title><url>https://stories.sandiegozoo.org/2021/10/28/san-diego-zoo-wildlife-alliance-conservation-scientists-report-first-confirmed-hatchings-of-two-california-condor-chicks-from-unfertilized-eggs/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bencollier49</author><text>So in birds, sex chromosome arrangement is a reverse of what we have in humans. Their males are ZZ and the female is ZW. Which is why only males appear from this parthenogenesis.</text></comment> |
34,113,593 | 34,113,701 | 1 | 3 | 34,112,008 | train | <story><title>How we slowed the subway down</title><url>https://homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/how-we-slowed-the-subway-down/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hristov</author><text>&quot;Sure you save some lives but how many will be late!&quot; I do not like this math. For example the accident may not be once per century. And it is good for the bureaucracy to be risk adverse if it comes to my life.<p>The answer is that they should improve the technology so that the system is safe and faster.</text></item><item><author>dzdt</author><text>After an operator-error derailment on the commuter rail line I frequently ride, the response of the NTSB was to require the railroad de-prioritize on-time performance and increase schedule times. As a frequent rider on the route I would much rather have my 15 minutes per day back and risk a once-per-century fatal accident. But the risk-averse bureaucracy we&#x27;ve built doesn&#x27;t make such calculations with a balance like that: they prioritize safety above all else never mind the detriments.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>quotemstr</author><text>&gt; I do not like this math<p>Many policy difficulties arise from unwillingness to trade-offs between &quot;sacred&quot; and non-&quot;sacred&quot; values. It&#x27;s easy to say that just one life is worth an arbitrary amount of non-fatal inconvenience to an arbitrary number of people. It&#x27;s the cheap, easy platitude anyone can summon in a meeting. It feels good to say. Simple. Strong. Righteous.<p>But the world doesn&#x27;t work this way. Mere life does not, in fact, have infinite, overriding value. Infrastructure engineering is not a morality play. It&#x27;s a complex set of trade-offs, some involving safety. In a big system like public transit, as crass as it might be to say explicitly, the optimal number of deaths is seldom zero. Safety and utility are not, as the moralists might insist, incommensurable. They in fact exist on the same plane, and to build things that are effective and efficient, we need to trade them off against each other. Failure to do so leads to cowardly paralysis.<p>In other words: yes, we absolutely should accept some statistical nonzero risk of injury to save time or money in the overwhelmingly common case, because these things <i>matter</i>.</text></comment> | <story><title>How we slowed the subway down</title><url>https://homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/how-we-slowed-the-subway-down/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hristov</author><text>&quot;Sure you save some lives but how many will be late!&quot; I do not like this math. For example the accident may not be once per century. And it is good for the bureaucracy to be risk adverse if it comes to my life.<p>The answer is that they should improve the technology so that the system is safe and faster.</text></item><item><author>dzdt</author><text>After an operator-error derailment on the commuter rail line I frequently ride, the response of the NTSB was to require the railroad de-prioritize on-time performance and increase schedule times. As a frequent rider on the route I would much rather have my 15 minutes per day back and risk a once-per-century fatal accident. But the risk-averse bureaucracy we&#x27;ve built doesn&#x27;t make such calculations with a balance like that: they prioritize safety above all else never mind the detriments.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kccqzy</author><text>When the train is often late, it simply pushes people to drive more, and depending on the specifics driving on the highway could very well be less safe. Ergo, it results in a net loss of lives. This is pointed out near the end of the article.</text></comment> |
19,126,384 | 19,126,328 | 1 | 2 | 19,124,953 | train | <story><title>Ruby in Twenty Minutes (2006)</title><url>https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rlue</author><text>I&#x27;m a self-taught junior developer who started with Ruby in 2016. I&#x27;ve very much enjoyed the experience so far, and am currently rather invested in Rails, though I&#x27;m preparing to branch out into other areas of web development (I&#x27;m looking at you, React).<p>This thread is really opening my eyes to the sheer vitriol that gets directed at Ruby outside of its own echo chamber.<p>I get that it has performance issues (to be addressed in Ruby 3) and interest in Rails is now less than half what it was at its peak.[0] Everyone has very strong opinions, and when people start soapboxing like they are in this thread, nobody learns anything.<p>At this point, honestly, I just think the rest of the community could use a little bit of Ruby&#x27;s characteristic niceness.[1]<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;trends.google.com&#x2F;trends&#x2F;explore?date=all&amp;q=%2Fm%2F0505cl" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;trends.google.com&#x2F;trends&#x2F;explore?date=all&amp;q=%2Fm%2F0...</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wiktionary.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;MINASWAN" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wiktionary.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;MINASWAN</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Ruby in Twenty Minutes (2006)</title><url>https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>djohnston</author><text>I&#x27;ve never learned ruby in an intentional manner, but whenever I needed to write some, I found that things just worked the way I expected it to, and the docs were always super helpful. To be fair, I haven&#x27;t built anything large scale with it, but my experience with the language has been anecdotally pleasant.</text></comment> |
5,594,571 | 5,594,328 | 1 | 3 | 5,593,960 | train | <story><title>We’re Being Sued For Linking To Shopzilla</title><url>http://www.datadial.net/blog/index.php/2013/04/18/were-being-sued-for-linking-to-shopzilla/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>grey-area</author><text>I suspect datadial know exactly what they're doing here - as revenge for this alleged petty act by the lawyers they're now google-bombing the term shopzilla (by deliberately including so many refs to shopzilla in this new blog post), and hoping to teach them a lesson about who is in control of links. They're already on the second page for a simple search for shopzilla, and I'd expect them to move up closer to the top if this gets more publicity and links in from other sites. Does it deserve it?<p>A very strange attempt by Shopzilla in the first place to control links to them, so it would be interesting to hear their side of this story. I looked up datadial - they're a London SEO shop, and their original blog post is typical of SEO blogs - lots of links to random sites strung together into a blog post to boost their blog's ranking for that topic - ecommerce in this case. I have to wonder if this little storm in a teacup isn't more beneficial to them the more absurd it sounds and the stormier it gets - even if it dies down later the benefit will still be there for them.<p>It's strange to see the court of public opinion function on sites like reddit and HN - the more controversial and snappier the original post, the more traction it gets, and nuances and truth are lost in the rush to condemn based on a very limited set of facts.</text></comment> | <story><title>We’re Being Sued For Linking To Shopzilla</title><url>http://www.datadial.net/blog/index.php/2013/04/18/were-being-sued-for-linking-to-shopzilla/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>DanBC</author><text>The hyperbole and tone of the article is difficult to read through.<p>Have you thought about writing a simple letter to the solicitors saying something like "Hello, you sent us a letter. Would you like to review our webpage here to see if we actually are infringing on your client's trademark? We seem to have been caught in some automatic system."<p>Be careful about 'no legal reason to take down an url' - there are a few. DMCA requests, anti-deeplinking causes in ToS / AUP, etc etc. See the Shetland Times vs Shetland News.</text></comment> |
24,413,099 | 24,412,491 | 1 | 2 | 24,409,093 | train | <story><title>FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/the-ftc-is-investigating-intuit-over-turbotax-practices</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>klmadfejno</author><text>God I hope this suit is successful. Lots of people here are discussing the regulatory trap they&#x27;ve got, and that&#x27;s a big problem. But the actual problem mentioned in the suit is deceptive marketing. TurboTax is the worst in this regard.<p>Last year, I, at every step of the process, declined the expensive options that say &quot;maybe you&#x27;ll save more money if you permanently switch into this paid mode&quot;. Yet after a couple hours of filling out forms, they said at the end that it wasn&#x27;t possible to file using the free version, and that I would have to pay a couple hundred dollars. That ticked me off. They have all of the information required to figure this out much earlier in the process (income), yet they continue to allow you to pick the free tier up until the very end where the tedium of starting over with a different service is too high. Fuck em.<p>Their UI is very nice though, especially for guiding people through a process that they almost intrinsically hate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>loosescrews</author><text>I have tried nearly all of the DIY tax offerings out there. CreditKarma has a relatively new completely free offering that I feel rivals TurboTax in ease of use. I also feel that it is superior to paid offerings such as H&amp;R Block.<p>Another completely free offering is freetax.com. I used them for a few years, and while not quite as easy to use, it works well.<p>Note that both of these free offerings include free state tax filing and have no income limits or up sells.</text></comment> | <story><title>FTC Is Investigating Intuit over TurboTax Practices</title><url>https://www.propublica.org/article/the-ftc-is-investigating-intuit-over-turbotax-practices</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>klmadfejno</author><text>God I hope this suit is successful. Lots of people here are discussing the regulatory trap they&#x27;ve got, and that&#x27;s a big problem. But the actual problem mentioned in the suit is deceptive marketing. TurboTax is the worst in this regard.<p>Last year, I, at every step of the process, declined the expensive options that say &quot;maybe you&#x27;ll save more money if you permanently switch into this paid mode&quot;. Yet after a couple hours of filling out forms, they said at the end that it wasn&#x27;t possible to file using the free version, and that I would have to pay a couple hundred dollars. That ticked me off. They have all of the information required to figure this out much earlier in the process (income), yet they continue to allow you to pick the free tier up until the very end where the tedium of starting over with a different service is too high. Fuck em.<p>Their UI is very nice though, especially for guiding people through a process that they almost intrinsically hate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cactus2093</author><text>Seems like TurboTax is probably not worth the hassle of trying to use for free. They try to steer you at every turn into accidentally accepting the paid features, and if you manage to make it through the maze there doesn&#x27;t really seem to be much left that makes them better than any of the simpler competitors if you stick to the free tiers - no saving your information year over year, no automatically importing the super complex statements from robo-advisors like Betterment, etc.<p>It also seems like most software engineers won&#x27;t qualify for free file anyway, because it has an income limit of $69,000 a year as far as I can tell.<p>One thing I genuinely wonder, at what point will digital&#x2F;web-based services become the default for handling information by the government and every other large institution? Will it ever happen in my lifetime? Why are we still having to pay for 3rd party software to fill out physical forms? Even docusign, while it has become very prevalent for most contracts these days and is very convenient, is still requiring that you fill out a scanned image of a physical piece of paper, instead of just making the contracts web-based. Why?? Why doesn&#x27;t the IRS just have a web app like turbotax for everyone to file taxes through? And if the answer is that the tax code is way too complicated that it&#x27;s prohibitively expensive for the government to build a site as comprehensive as Turbotax, then fix it!</text></comment> |
27,763,638 | 27,763,675 | 1 | 2 | 27,761,706 | train | <story><title>Neurons unexpectedly encode information in the timing of their firing</title><url>https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-kind-of-information-coding-seen-in-the-human-brain-20210707/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexmorley</author><text>&gt; For decades, neuroscientists have treated the brain somewhat like a Geiger counter: The rate at which neurons fire is taken as a measure of activity, just as a Geiger counter’s click rate indicates the strength of radiation.<p>This hasn&#x27;t been true for at least 20 years. There&#x27;s a classic paper showing evidence of this in 1993 (O&#x27;Keefe and Reece) in rats. And has been an active area of discussion both before and since. (Note that it&#x27;s not to say that rate isn&#x27;t important, but as a community no one has beleived that all the information would be encoded in rate for many years)<p>There&#x27;s lots of good explainers here that link to relevant research: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scholarpedia.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;Encyclopedia:Computational_neuroscience" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scholarpedia.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;Encyclopedia:Computation...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nocturnial</author><text>They mentioned this in the 3rd paragraph: &quot;This temporal firing phenomenon is well documented in certain brain areas of rats, but the new study and others suggest it might be far more widespread in mammalian brains.&quot;</text></comment> | <story><title>Neurons unexpectedly encode information in the timing of their firing</title><url>https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-kind-of-information-coding-seen-in-the-human-brain-20210707/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alexmorley</author><text>&gt; For decades, neuroscientists have treated the brain somewhat like a Geiger counter: The rate at which neurons fire is taken as a measure of activity, just as a Geiger counter’s click rate indicates the strength of radiation.<p>This hasn&#x27;t been true for at least 20 years. There&#x27;s a classic paper showing evidence of this in 1993 (O&#x27;Keefe and Reece) in rats. And has been an active area of discussion both before and since. (Note that it&#x27;s not to say that rate isn&#x27;t important, but as a community no one has beleived that all the information would be encoded in rate for many years)<p>There&#x27;s lots of good explainers here that link to relevant research: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scholarpedia.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;Encyclopedia:Computational_neuroscience" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scholarpedia.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;Encyclopedia:Computation...</a></text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mdp2021</author><text>&quot;Scholarpedia [.org] : the peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia (where knowledge is curated by communities of experts).&quot;<p>Thank you, thank you, thank you.<p>This fills an important gap.</text></comment> |
11,415,056 | 11,407,158 | 1 | 3 | 11,402,862 | train | <story><title>Dwarf Fortress' creator on how he's 42% towards simulating existence</title><url>http://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-creator-on-how-hes-42-towards-simulating-existence/#page-1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kderbe</author><text>Quote from Tarn Adams (DF&#x27;s creator):<p><i>I don’t even use version control. If you don’t know what that is then you’re not gonna yell at me. If you even know what version control is you’re gonna be like, ‘You don’t use version control? You don’t use source control? What is wrong with you? How can you even work?’</i><p>If you&#x27;re the sole developer of a project and you have, say, hourly backups, then maybe version control is a waste of effort? I would still use it out of habit, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that Tarn would choose not to.</text></comment> | <story><title>Dwarf Fortress' creator on how he's 42% towards simulating existence</title><url>http://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-creator-on-how-hes-42-towards-simulating-existence/#page-1</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>brudgers</author><text>The Software Engineering Daily [podcast] interview with Adams is a great listen. It&#x27;s a great narrative about software development as art and passion.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;softwareengineeringdaily.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;22&#x2F;dwarf-fortress-with-tarn-adams&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;softwareengineeringdaily.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;22&#x2F;dwarf-fortres...</a></text></comment> |
12,053,611 | 12,053,517 | 1 | 3 | 12,052,016 | train | <story><title>Native reactive spreadsheet in 17 LOC</title><url>http://www.red-lang.org/2016/07/native-reactive-spreadsheet-in-17-loc.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>frik</author><text>A spreadsheet in fewer than 30 lines of JavaScript (uncompressed), no library:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jsfiddle.net&#x2F;ondras&#x2F;hYfN3&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;jsfiddle.net&#x2F;ondras&#x2F;hYfN3&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6725387" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6725387</a><p>You can compare it to the readable 67 lines of code in red-lang</text></comment> | <story><title>Native reactive spreadsheet in 17 LOC</title><url>http://www.red-lang.org/2016/07/native-reactive-spreadsheet-in-17-loc.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tonyle</author><text>Pretty cool.<p>However, how can you call it 17 LOC and then put in a link to a &quot;readable&quot; version with 67 LOC on the same page.</text></comment> |
33,994,216 | 33,993,738 | 1 | 2 | 33,987,952 | train | <story><title>Hidden tech of the Nest Thermostat</title><url>https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/nest-thermostat-evolution</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>I wish they could solve the basic use case of &quot;Let me set a temperature and thermostat keeps the house at that temperature.&quot; I tried several versions of Nest, and they all inevitably decided on their own that they were smarter than me and generated some weird schedule despite my never commanding them to operate on a schedule. I just want my thermostat to hold whatever temperature I set it at, until I set it at another temperature. This shouldn&#x27;t take AI wizardry to achieve.</text></item><item><author>AlbertCory</author><text>When I was in Google Patent Litigation, I volunteered to work on Nest because it sounded cool. So I spent a couple days over there (they weren&#x27;t on the Mountain View campus) and sat in on some deposition preps. They were being sued by a Texas company called Allure, which was <i>not</i> a troll; they actually had a product that, at one time, you could have found on the Home Depot web site. I&#x27;m not going to reveal any legal secrets here, sorry.<p>I did a ton of research on this space, and dove into their source code. Literally all over the world, companies have been working on this problem for decades. How you know when someone is coming home so you can turn on the heat or A&#x2F;C, or how the utility company can do it for you: all that is very, very well covered. I don&#x27;t think there&#x27;s anything fundamentally new about the Nest, and I don&#x27;t have one in my house.<p>I actually stayed in someone&#x27;s house that had two, so it&#x27;s not as though it&#x27;s completely foreign to me. I don&#x27;t think that web-ifying your whole house is ever a good idea and I&#x27;m never going to do it. YMMV.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wycy</author><text>&gt; I just want my thermostat to hold whatever temperature I set it at, until I set it at another temperature.<p>You can set your own schedule with Nest, you don&#x27;t have to let the AI take over. Mine is fully on my own manual schedule.</text></comment> | <story><title>Hidden tech of the Nest Thermostat</title><url>https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/nest-thermostat-evolution</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>I wish they could solve the basic use case of &quot;Let me set a temperature and thermostat keeps the house at that temperature.&quot; I tried several versions of Nest, and they all inevitably decided on their own that they were smarter than me and generated some weird schedule despite my never commanding them to operate on a schedule. I just want my thermostat to hold whatever temperature I set it at, until I set it at another temperature. This shouldn&#x27;t take AI wizardry to achieve.</text></item><item><author>AlbertCory</author><text>When I was in Google Patent Litigation, I volunteered to work on Nest because it sounded cool. So I spent a couple days over there (they weren&#x27;t on the Mountain View campus) and sat in on some deposition preps. They were being sued by a Texas company called Allure, which was <i>not</i> a troll; they actually had a product that, at one time, you could have found on the Home Depot web site. I&#x27;m not going to reveal any legal secrets here, sorry.<p>I did a ton of research on this space, and dove into their source code. Literally all over the world, companies have been working on this problem for decades. How you know when someone is coming home so you can turn on the heat or A&#x2F;C, or how the utility company can do it for you: all that is very, very well covered. I don&#x27;t think there&#x27;s anything fundamentally new about the Nest, and I don&#x27;t have one in my house.<p>I actually stayed in someone&#x27;s house that had two, so it&#x27;s not as though it&#x27;s completely foreign to me. I don&#x27;t think that web-ifying your whole house is ever a good idea and I&#x27;m never going to do it. YMMV.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pdonis</author><text><i>&gt; I just want my thermostat to hold whatever temperature I set it at, until I set it at another temperature.</i><p>If it only takes one of heating or cooling to do this, not both, a standard &quot;dumb&quot; thermostat can of course do this just fine. Just set it to &quot;cool&quot; or &quot;heat&quot; mode and set a temperature. But of course you will need to change modes as the season changes (unless you live somewhere where only one mode is ever needed).<p>If you want to not have to change modes when the season changes, it gets more complicated, because the simple control system in the standard thermostat is too dumb for that. For example, suppose you set your temperature to 75. The actual temperature rises to 76, above the setpoint, so your A&#x2F;C comes on. It cools the house to 74 and then the thermostat shuts it off (you have to have some buffer so the A&#x2F;C doesn&#x27;t come on again almost immediately). Now the temperature is below the setpoint, so your heat comes on. It heats the house to 76 and then shuts off. Now the temperature is above the setpoint... You can see what&#x27;s going on.<p>From a pure design perspective, the right way to solve this problem is an outside temperature sensor (and probably a sun sensor as well since sunlight is a significant heat input to your house), so the system can predict what will happen when both cooling and heating are off. Given reliable sensors, the control algorithm is fairly simple (automatic climate control systems in cars already do it). I have never seen this in a house, though. I&#x27;m not sure why.</text></comment> |
7,071,853 | 7,071,474 | 1 | 2 | 7,071,429 | train | <story><title>Nimrod: A New Approach to Metaprogramming [video]</title><url>http://www.infoq.com/presentations/nimrod</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>skrebbel</author><text>I am <i>very</i> intrigued by Nimrod. The language seems to have goals that overlap with e.g. Rust, but with a bunch of really interesting design decisions (e.g. GC by default, but first class support for manual memory management). Given the amount of force driving Rust (and Rust&#x27;s PR machine), compared to Nimrod which seems to be really pushed forward by one single person, I&#x27;m really impressed by how far Nimrod got.<p>I really want to start using Nimrod for real work.</text></comment> | <story><title>Nimrod: A New Approach to Metaprogramming [video]</title><url>http://www.infoq.com/presentations/nimrod</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>dom96</author><text>Slides: HTML (<a href="http://nimrod-code.org/talk01/slides.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nimrod-code.org&#x2F;talk01&#x2F;slides.html</a>) and PDF (<a href="http://nimrod-lang.org/talk01/slides.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;nimrod-lang.org&#x2F;talk01&#x2F;slides.pdf</a>)</text></comment> |
27,671,164 | 27,669,696 | 1 | 3 | 27,666,455 | train | <story><title>The 'Fuck You' Pattern</title><url>https://cedwards.xyz/the-fuck-you-pattern/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nine_k</author><text>Go an and run a site that serves massive amounts of cat pictures for peanuts!<p>Well, yes, serving static HTML is easy. Serving images is kind of not hard either, because you have free unlimited traffic, don&#x27;t you? Some hosting plans offer it. They just limit the egress bandwidth. So maybe you need a few more servers to cope with it, just like $50 a pop. You&#x27;re not gonna need any CDN, people further away from your DC will just wait longer. Or run your servers from two regions, it just takes duplicating your collection of cat pictures, should be peanuts.<p>Then, you need to store these terabytes of cats. On rather fast disks because else the disks will be the bottleneck, and cats will load very slowly for some users. It would be terrible were something to happen to the collection, so you need some backup for peanuts, like some Backblaze, and maybe a second copy because Backblaze has no^W limited redundancy.<p>Then, well, you need to monitor all that and sometimes fix issues, because cloud infra is highly available but not highly reliable.<p>Then, where do the cat pictures come from? Allow anonymous uploads! Or register users and allow uploads.<p>Now analyze each picture so that it&#x27;s an actual cat picture and not child porn or a warez archive. Resize them to match your standards. Yes, this is simple, just run a RNN that detects cats.<p>Then, curate the incoming pictures so that they are actually reasonably interesting. Just maybe hire a few people to do that for peanuts somewhere in Africa.<p>Ah yes, you want to also deduplicate images; run some image hashing algorithms; use maybe just one or two GPU instances to do that efficiently. And you gonna need a DB, a simple one, that will never need any administering or fixing, won&#x27;t it?<p>Well, yes, now you can run that site for just several grand a month, making it your day job, because you&#x27;re well-qualified to maintain every part of it. Enjoy the peanuts.</text></item><item><author>e12e</author><text>&gt; You thought it was fair that a company spends millions in technical infrastructure and staffing so you can sit at home and spend your time looking at cats for free? No, they have your attention and they&#x27;re going to connect you to organizations who will pay for it.<p>&quot;The infrastructure&quot; to share cat pictures cost peanuts. It&#x27;s the addictive dark patterns and montezation&#x2F;tracking that costs millions. That&#x27;s the irony.</text></item><item><author>andrewmcwatters</author><text>&quot;Wow, fuck you. I just wanted to look at cats.&quot;<p>&quot;Well, fuck you, too. We&#x27;re here to sell ads.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s not about dark patterns, that&#x27;s just a second-order effect. It was never about dark patterns.<p>This is the implied agreement. You understand it, or you don&#x27;t. And if you don&#x27;t, I guess you haven&#x27;t been on the web in the past decade or something.<p>What? You thought it was fair that a company spends millions in technical infrastructure and staffing so you can sit at home and spend your time looking at cats for free? No, they have your attention and they&#x27;re going to connect you to organizations who will pay for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dylanwenzlau</author><text>Hi. I run imgflip.com, a fine purveyor of cat pictures, among others. It serves ~100TB of bandwidth and hundreds of millions of image views per month with total infrastructure cost below 5k per month. I believe Imgflip completely avoids dark patterns because I abhor them and strive to provide positive value to humanity, although I would love for you to share your opinions to the contrary. Imgflip is also 80% profit. It employs several of the techniques you mention, but efficiently, rather than bloated and inefficient like many companies. Curious to hear your take</text></comment> | <story><title>The 'Fuck You' Pattern</title><url>https://cedwards.xyz/the-fuck-you-pattern/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nine_k</author><text>Go an and run a site that serves massive amounts of cat pictures for peanuts!<p>Well, yes, serving static HTML is easy. Serving images is kind of not hard either, because you have free unlimited traffic, don&#x27;t you? Some hosting plans offer it. They just limit the egress bandwidth. So maybe you need a few more servers to cope with it, just like $50 a pop. You&#x27;re not gonna need any CDN, people further away from your DC will just wait longer. Or run your servers from two regions, it just takes duplicating your collection of cat pictures, should be peanuts.<p>Then, you need to store these terabytes of cats. On rather fast disks because else the disks will be the bottleneck, and cats will load very slowly for some users. It would be terrible were something to happen to the collection, so you need some backup for peanuts, like some Backblaze, and maybe a second copy because Backblaze has no^W limited redundancy.<p>Then, well, you need to monitor all that and sometimes fix issues, because cloud infra is highly available but not highly reliable.<p>Then, where do the cat pictures come from? Allow anonymous uploads! Or register users and allow uploads.<p>Now analyze each picture so that it&#x27;s an actual cat picture and not child porn or a warez archive. Resize them to match your standards. Yes, this is simple, just run a RNN that detects cats.<p>Then, curate the incoming pictures so that they are actually reasonably interesting. Just maybe hire a few people to do that for peanuts somewhere in Africa.<p>Ah yes, you want to also deduplicate images; run some image hashing algorithms; use maybe just one or two GPU instances to do that efficiently. And you gonna need a DB, a simple one, that will never need any administering or fixing, won&#x27;t it?<p>Well, yes, now you can run that site for just several grand a month, making it your day job, because you&#x27;re well-qualified to maintain every part of it. Enjoy the peanuts.</text></item><item><author>e12e</author><text>&gt; You thought it was fair that a company spends millions in technical infrastructure and staffing so you can sit at home and spend your time looking at cats for free? No, they have your attention and they&#x27;re going to connect you to organizations who will pay for it.<p>&quot;The infrastructure&quot; to share cat pictures cost peanuts. It&#x27;s the addictive dark patterns and montezation&#x2F;tracking that costs millions. That&#x27;s the irony.</text></item><item><author>andrewmcwatters</author><text>&quot;Wow, fuck you. I just wanted to look at cats.&quot;<p>&quot;Well, fuck you, too. We&#x27;re here to sell ads.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s not about dark patterns, that&#x27;s just a second-order effect. It was never about dark patterns.<p>This is the implied agreement. You understand it, or you don&#x27;t. And if you don&#x27;t, I guess you haven&#x27;t been on the web in the past decade or something.<p>What? You thought it was fair that a company spends millions in technical infrastructure and staffing so you can sit at home and spend your time looking at cats for free? No, they have your attention and they&#x27;re going to connect you to organizations who will pay for it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jehb</author><text>This sounds like a great case for a decentralized web infrastructure like Mastodon uses. Each cat server can be exactly as reliable as the owner feels like making it, and each user can choose a cat server based on their needs, and the whole thing is federated because it&#x27;s based on open source and open standards.<p>p2p cats for teh win</text></comment> |
23,585,369 | 23,584,937 | 1 | 2 | 23,584,633 | train | <story><title>The Art of the Possible</title><url>https://hypercritical.co/2020/06/20/the-art-of-the-possible</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Amorymeltzer</author><text>Just a note on the final line:<p>&gt;Apple needs to decide if it wants to be “right,” or if it wants to be happy.<p>I <i>think</i> Siracusa is referencing a line from The Hitchhiker&#x27;s Guide to the Galaxy, spoken by Slartibartfast as part of an exchange with Arthur Dent:<p>&gt;&quot;I&#x27;d far rather be happy than right any day.&quot;<p>&gt;&quot;And are you?&quot;<p>&gt;&quot;No, that&#x27;s where it all falls down, of course.&quot;<p>&gt;&quot;Pity,&quot; said Arthur with sympathy. &quot;It sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise.&quot;<p>I love the book, but that particular line has stuck with me for quite a while. I try to use it as a guide whenever I start to lean toward being right over happiness. Works for relationships, code reviews, whatever you like.</text></comment> | <story><title>The Art of the Possible</title><url>https://hypercritical.co/2020/06/20/the-art-of-the-possible</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hrktb</author><text>Very well put, as usual. The most important part for me is how both developers and users are unhappy with the current rules.<p>Hey is the latest flavor of the controversy, but from the start I’m bitter I can’t buy Amazon ebooks directly from the amazon app. And it’s not like these rule give me more security, provide for the stability of the platform, or help me in any indirect ways. The kindle app still makes no revenue for Apple either way.<p>Everyone loses, and that doesn’t help Apple’s image as it’s slowly crawling out of the laptop keyboard fiasco and this string of pretty flaky macos versions.</text></comment> |
21,060,181 | 21,059,999 | 1 | 2 | 21,058,848 | train | <story><title>European Court limits right to be forgotten to E.U.</title><url>http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=218105&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=903295</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brokenkebab</author><text>The ruling is fair, it would open an international can of worms if EU bodies would start to dictate other countries users what to see on the net.<p>However, it means the real effect of the RtBF law is that it impedes less technically proficient internet users to search other person&#x27;s data, but absolutely doesn&#x27;t achieve stated goals (as nothing is forgotten, and entities which do personal data checks will for sure be able to use non-EU IPs to get unrestricted results). What it essentially does is limitation of low-skilled users search results. And that&#x27;s all.<p>Which proves the whole thing was a combination of PR stunt, and incompetence on behalf of wide array of EU politicians, and NGO activists.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>temporalparts</author><text>I don&#x27;t understand why it&#x27;s search engine&#x27;s burden to bear for right to be forgotten. Shouldn&#x27;t the takedown notices go to the source materials, eg newspapers, who actually contains the knowledge? Google is simply the references to knowledge that &quot;needs&quot; to be forgotten, and not the knowledge itself?</text></comment> | <story><title>European Court limits right to be forgotten to E.U.</title><url>http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=218105&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=903295</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>brokenkebab</author><text>The ruling is fair, it would open an international can of worms if EU bodies would start to dictate other countries users what to see on the net.<p>However, it means the real effect of the RtBF law is that it impedes less technically proficient internet users to search other person&#x27;s data, but absolutely doesn&#x27;t achieve stated goals (as nothing is forgotten, and entities which do personal data checks will for sure be able to use non-EU IPs to get unrestricted results). What it essentially does is limitation of low-skilled users search results. And that&#x27;s all.<p>Which proves the whole thing was a combination of PR stunt, and incompetence on behalf of wide array of EU politicians, and NGO activists.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Vinnl</author><text>&gt; What it essentially does is limitation of low-skilled users search results. And that&#x27;s all.<p>That sounds like it&#x27;s still something though. If someone gets falsely accused of e.g. being a pedophile, and their prospective employer does not run into that information when researching them during the interview process, that seems like it achieves one of the goals people had in mind with this legislation.</text></comment> |
19,516,209 | 19,515,087 | 1 | 3 | 19,513,531 | train | <story><title>Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair</title><url>https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3mqna/internal-documents-show-apple-is-capable-of-implementing-right-to-repair-legislation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beamatronic</author><text>I was recently upgrading a 2008 MacBook. Upgraded the hard drive and the memory. It was so easy. It is an absolute joy to service this machine. It also has many useful ports and an awesome battery indicator on the side.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wlesieutre</author><text>I remember in the old iBooks back when WiFi was a new thing you could order without it and install your own card later in about 15 seconds.<p>There were little sprung pull tabs between some of the function keys, pull them back, lift the keyboard out, AirPort card slot was right there. RAM slots too.<p>And the <i>removable keyboard</i>, gosh! Those keyboards didn’t just shit the bed if a piece of dust got in them, but even if they had it was a separate part that you could swap out without replacing half the computer. Good times.<p>I have a 2016 MBP now. Betting the resale value when the 4-year keyboard warranty runs out is going to be about what the rest of the computer is worth for spare parts.</text></comment> | <story><title>Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair</title><url>https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3mqna/internal-documents-show-apple-is-capable-of-implementing-right-to-repair-legislation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beamatronic</author><text>I was recently upgrading a 2008 MacBook. Upgraded the hard drive and the memory. It was so easy. It is an absolute joy to service this machine. It also has many useful ports and an awesome battery indicator on the side.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cydonian_monk</author><text>I feel the same about my 2012 MacBookPro. While it was a _tiny_ bit down the path of &quot;not user serviceable&quot;, replacing the battery and trackpad was extremely easy. And one of the first things I did to it was replace&#x2F;upgrade Apple&#x27;s RAM and drop an SSD into the optical bay.</text></comment> |
23,844,854 | 23,843,312 | 1 | 3 | 23,840,243 | train | <story><title>Go generics may use square brackets [] not parenthesis ()</title><url>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang-nuts/7t-Q2vt60J8</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Akronymus</author><text>QWERTZ here. I need to use the following key combinations:<p>shift + 8 -&gt; (<p>shift + 9 -&gt; )<p>alt + ctrl + 8 -&gt; [<p>alt + ctrl + 9 -&gt; ]<p>alt + ctrl + 7 -&gt; {<p>alt + ctrl + 0 -&gt; }<p>Alternatively alt + ctrl can be replaced by altgr.<p>And for further fun:<p>alt + ctrl + ß -&gt; \<p>shift + 0 -&gt; =<p>shift + 7 -&gt; &#x2F;<p>Actually, it is probably easier to link the whole layout: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;DIN_2137#&#x2F;media&#x2F;Datei:Deutsche_Tastaturbelegung_T1_nach_DIN_2137-01--2018-12.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;DIN_2137#&#x2F;media&#x2F;Datei:Deutsche...</a><p>It is pretty bad for programming in languages that make heavy usage of braces&#x2F;brackets&#x2F;parenthesis.</text></item><item><author>chmod775</author><text>&gt;A typical computer keyboard provides four easily accessible pairs of single-character symmetrical &quot;brackets&quot;<p>&quot;falsehoods programmers believe about keyboards&quot;<p>On the keyboard layouts of many countries these keys aren&#x27;t accessible at all, either missing entirely or only being accessible via unergonomic key combinations.<p>For this reason myself (and many other programmers) own additional ANSI-US layout keyboards.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pantalaimon</author><text>&gt; Alternatively alt + ctrl can be replaced by altgr.<p>What operating system are you on?
I can <i>only</i> create those with AltGr, anything shift-alt will be interpreted as a keyboard shortcut.</text></comment> | <story><title>Go generics may use square brackets [] not parenthesis ()</title><url>https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang-nuts/7t-Q2vt60J8</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Akronymus</author><text>QWERTZ here. I need to use the following key combinations:<p>shift + 8 -&gt; (<p>shift + 9 -&gt; )<p>alt + ctrl + 8 -&gt; [<p>alt + ctrl + 9 -&gt; ]<p>alt + ctrl + 7 -&gt; {<p>alt + ctrl + 0 -&gt; }<p>Alternatively alt + ctrl can be replaced by altgr.<p>And for further fun:<p>alt + ctrl + ß -&gt; \<p>shift + 0 -&gt; =<p>shift + 7 -&gt; &#x2F;<p>Actually, it is probably easier to link the whole layout: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;DIN_2137#&#x2F;media&#x2F;Datei:Deutsche_Tastaturbelegung_T1_nach_DIN_2137-01--2018-12.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;DIN_2137#&#x2F;media&#x2F;Datei:Deutsche...</a><p>It is pretty bad for programming in languages that make heavy usage of braces&#x2F;brackets&#x2F;parenthesis.</text></item><item><author>chmod775</author><text>&gt;A typical computer keyboard provides four easily accessible pairs of single-character symmetrical &quot;brackets&quot;<p>&quot;falsehoods programmers believe about keyboards&quot;<p>On the keyboard layouts of many countries these keys aren&#x27;t accessible at all, either missing entirely or only being accessible via unergonomic key combinations.<p>For this reason myself (and many other programmers) own additional ANSI-US layout keyboards.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rk06</author><text>at that point, you might as well buy a QWERTY keyboard</text></comment> |
33,053,261 | 33,052,522 | 1 | 3 | 33,050,270 | train | <story><title>Stellarium 1.0</title><url>https://stellarium.org/release/2022/10/01/stellarium-1.0.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>trinovantes</author><text>It&#x27;s pretty cool that they have a web client too<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stellarium-web.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stellarium-web.org&#x2F;</a><p>I&#x27;m surprised at how much stuff there are above me if not for all the light polution</text></item><item><author>sva_</author><text>&gt; Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.<p>In case someone was wondering.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>EdwardDiego</author><text>I&#x27;m in the Southern Hemisphere and even in my nearest &quot;large&quot; city, you can still see the Milky Way on a clear night. Not in all its glory, mind, but you can see it, and Crux Australis, such a definitive Southern Hemisphere constellation that it appears on five national flags. Although it can be hard to see Epsilon Crucis in a city, as it&#x27;s a bit dimmer than the four main stars.<p>But then I travelled to far more densely populated Northern Hemisphere countries, and wow, I see what light pollution is, I really wanted to see Orion right side up, but wasn&#x27;t able to get far enough away from populated areas when the sky was clear.<p>Another benefit of living on a sparsely populated island I guess, not sure if it offsets all of the downsides (island &quot;tax&quot; is real, small economy makes it hard to challenge incumbents who dominate a market, we get very few concerts from the top bands, often left off maps), but it did make appreciate what we have in terms of the night sky.<p>I&#x27;m a real big fan of dark sky reserves, it&#x27;s a fantastic idea. [0]<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.darksky.org&#x2F;our-work&#x2F;conservation&#x2F;idsp&#x2F;reserves&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.darksky.org&#x2F;our-work&#x2F;conservation&#x2F;idsp&#x2F;reserves&#x2F;</a></text></comment> | <story><title>Stellarium 1.0</title><url>https://stellarium.org/release/2022/10/01/stellarium-1.0.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>trinovantes</author><text>It&#x27;s pretty cool that they have a web client too<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stellarium-web.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stellarium-web.org&#x2F;</a><p>I&#x27;m surprised at how much stuff there are above me if not for all the light polution</text></item><item><author>sva_</author><text>&gt; Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.<p>In case someone was wondering.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jeffparsons</author><text>When I enter my correct location into the web interface, it thinks the sun has just set. It&#x27;s actually the middle of the day here.<p>I&#x27;ve tried slight variations of my current location in case it was just getting mixed up with other similarly named places elsewhere in the world. No luck.<p>OTOH I already have the Android version on my phone and that has always worked just fine.<p>Strange...</text></comment> |
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