skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I sometimes feel like the guy you describe (although perhaps because I do indicates that I am not?)

I have a webapp that I maintain for a family member written, by me, in 2005. It was using WebWork (which became Struts 2) and still is, and I am trying to move it to something more modern in bits and pieces. But it's requiring me to learn a lot, which I am trying to do in the limited time I have.

At my work we do way more modern thing, but so much so that I'm not able to do any UI stuff since they use tech I'm not "hit the ground running" capable of doing. But I'm trying.

I hope I'm not abrasive however.
> Atomic operations have a fixed cost. Spinlocks only really have a cost when contention is high.

You're making it sound like spinlocks don't need atomic operations. I'm pretty sure locking a spinlock requires an atomic operation.
Android allows almost all content, including sideloading apps.
This can't be overstated. Even if we got the general public to sort of understand PGP and PKI there is going to be a significant number of users that don't understand the difference between a password and a password protected key. The expectation is going to be that when they move to a new computer that their "password still works" and are going to be extremely angry when it doesn't.
>To be honest, this whole thing just seems like a vague rant. It's full of hand-wavy statements like 'Once you learn Elm or Cycle, getting things done will be more productive' with only vague anecdotes to back them up, with no specific examples of worked problems.

Perhaps missed the whole second part of the article, which gives several concrete examples and concerns.
Any kind of suggestion, how regulation should look like? For example, automatic updates would probably be a must-have for network connected devices. On the other hand, I do not really want my TV to phone home. The problem is, that computers are too flexible for meaningfull regulation, contrast it with the case of a boiler, the interest of the user is that the boiler does not explode, both for the engineer and the housewive.
Thank you for suggesting the book. It's a very nice book I really liked it. Written in simple language, very interesting to read and know the facts too. Thanks again. If you know more good books like this suggest me. Cheers mate!!
Peace
Looks like a case of 'faster horses'. But laudable.
How does gambling in the finance market worthy of respect?
Thanks, I'll see if I can find this paper.
Indeed, a lot of people are put into asylums for things lighter than that. You tend to get away with it if it is your 'religion' and is backed by a lot of people.
Your story almost matches mine. I didn't have the people skills to become a manager though.

Because no one will hire older hardware engineers, we've been forced into semi-retirement against our ultimate wishes.
I like you spend a lot of time on open source hardware and firmware projects and post them on github. It's the only way to remain sane.
The banks were told by the regulators to give out this loans and the government even invented the scheme to cook the books. More like partners in crime than dereliction of duty.
If you believe any part of innovation comes from new products launched by small new companies, then regulation will hurt security, because to a first approximation none of those kinds of companies have any coherent plan for software security. None of them can afford market rates for this kind of work.

Another problem with regulating software security is that it will inevitably involve licensing software security assessors (it's hard to meaningfully require audits without doing that). The history of licensed security auditors is not reassuring; the economics predict a race-to-the-bottom, and that's what you get (see: PCI).
2 people do not make a community.
grep and a server with 64gb of memory instead of a 4 rack Hadoop deployment.
Time for a Guaranteed Basic Income?
That's not substantially different. How about some of those 60000 geniuses make some choices about what to pursue?
That is why I also said 50,000 public key operations per second.
What was so wrong with Linux audio, if you don't mind?

I experience about zero problems. Maybe it's because I don't run pulseaudio.
This article was published originally in October 2010. (Original HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013 (311 points, 1929 days ago, 76 comments))

A previous similar article was written by kens in June 2009: "Inside the news.yc ranking formula" http://www.righto.com/2009/06/how-does-newsyc-ranking-work.h... (I can't find the HN discussion.)

I think it's more relevant to see another article of kens that tries to reconstruct a more recent version of the algorithm, from November 2013: "How Hacker News ranking really works: scoring, controversy, and penalties" How Hacker News ranking really works: scoring, controversy, and penalties (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6799854 (920 points, 788 days ago, 190 comments))

But take all these articles as an approximation, because the current algorithm probably have more tweaks.
I'm not sure about virtualised kernels on hypervisors working well. Under the right conditions they can probably be made to, but I've seen cases where apps that could scale reasonably well to 32 cores on a bare-metal OS having difficulty go beyond 4 cores when inside hardware virtualisation; the hypervisor was migrating threads between cores, which the guest OS was unaware of.

My own experience with KVM has been that performance is problematic, thus I don't really find it compelling evidence that M:N schedulers can work well. Maybe other hypervisors can do it better, but I don't see how they could get around fundamental realities: there usually are more hypervisor threads than real cores available to service them, yet guest OS's aren't designed to gracefully handle virtual cores unexpectedly freezing for periods of time.
Without specifically disagreeing with you, the real advance that led to the bloom in Bayesian statistics was fast computers. MCMC and Gibb's sampling, and variational interference are what got the intractable-when-useful field of Bayesian statistics back on its feet.
My point is that you deserve it no more or no less than refugees.
Work with easy to understand frameworks, and don't try to link together tons of complex systems that are hard to configure and require outside support. Don't have nitpicking code reviews. Don't have complex and bureaucratic process rules for code check in. Don't have build and test environments that break all the time. Don't have too many meetings. Don't have deadlines or ETAs for engineers, this makes them stressed out. Allow for flexible work hours.
The Grain/App thing isn't from Wekan, but from Sandstorm.io which they use for the demo. A "grain" in sandstorm-terminology is an instance of an app (e.g. Wekan) on a sandstorm.io server.
That article, and Eric Ries' book, define an MVP as a "version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort." A "version of a new product" doesn't have to be a product.

The classic example of an MVP that Eric Ries uses is the explainer video Drew Houston created for DropBox before building the actual product [1]. The video worked as an MVP by helping Houston test his assumptions, but I don't think you could say the video itself was a "product."

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-prod...
When you are young, you feel invincible.

You think: I can continue working till I die. This reasoning is flawed.

When you are young, a wise thing to do is to live below your means, save and invest, and prepare for the day when your employer will kick you to the curb.
Back in the mists of time, there was a thing called CGI-IRC written in perl that you deployed as an nph CGI script and would then do real time comms; I think (vague memory) the original authors an ircatwork.com using it and then eventually started mibbit.

I don't recall seeing one written in C, I think the last time I saw a CGI script written in C was a some years ago version of Nagios
I think it will hurt real innovation. The big companies will just build the same crap they always do, but have an army of clerics and lawyers to shepherd that crap through the kafkaesque paperwork scheme that will certainly develop.

The real innovators will then not be able to come to market because the don't have $750k extra laying around for 6 months of burn waiting for/obtaining certifications, bonds, insurance etc.

Edit: In theory, I agree with OP, but in practice, these things almost always end up being more about permission than proficiency so we end up with corruption instead of competence.
I will burn your progress bar on sight
Security can never be perfect, but it can be sufficient. Simple sufficient regulation could be having a clearly documented address and process for security issues to get reported and an obligation to provide fixes for remote vulnerabilities in a reasonable time frame after becoming aware of them within the warranty period (they are design flaws, so warranty should cover them). In other words, legally mandate everyone should do what conscientious vendors already do.
Your comparison is clumsy. US car makers didn't intentionally break the law to increase the amount of poison gas entering the environment. The GM ignition switch or Taketa air bag cases would be more apt.
The fashion for making employees collaborate has gone too far
Thanks for not denying that privilege exists, and for pointing out that some of it is likely due to the unconscious bias we can politely dub "human nature"! E.g. we hire people who look like us, even if they're not the best people for the job...

You know, in situations like this I'm often reminded of that Upton Sinclair quote, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I think a lot of the pushback against awareness and understanding of privilege comes from that idea.

Being told that you're getting some lucky break because you're a hetero white dude, whether it's preferential treatment in job interview callbacks or orchestra hiring or any of the million other things that have been so insanely thoroughly documented.. well, kinda draws attention to the possibility that, if we were living in a meritocratic world, suddenly all us lucky white dudes would have to compete with a much wider group of people. A man's salary and all that.

As far as swinging the other way and preferring people for their minority status, quite frankly, I'm totally ok with doing so for a generation or two, since I would at least be trying to compensate for hundreds of years of systemic bias against those beleaguered groups of people. Forever? Naw. For now? Sure, even if it means I personally would lose out on contracts or whatever.

But our disagreement here is something to work out in the political arena, not something I think it makes sense to try and bridge from first principles or anything; I at least used to feel the way you do, and came to change my mind about it only through a lot of life experience that told me it made sense to change my mind.
PulseAudio still relies on ALSA or OSS at the Kernel level. Typically most setups are PulseAudio + ALSA.
PulseAudio seems to get by far the most development and support. I tried ALSA and couldn't get any sound at all, and it didn't seem to be very well integrated into my shell. I did get ALSA to work on my laptop, but there were still lots of tradeoffs.
I think Elon Musk's ideas around VW were more sane:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elon-musk-volkswagen-emi...

(His idea was essentially: societal rehabilitation rather than the electric chair.)

I brought up the bailout because it establishes an anti-competitive pattern. Yes, I am aware that various European nations have done various similar bailouts as well, but I'm proud that my country (Sweden) resisted that when Volvo and SAAB were in financial danger a few years ago.
No thanks I already signed up/am a member but I'm on my smartphone/laptop/friends device and I just want the content

No thanks I'm really in a hurry this looks really interesting I'll come back later(I won't)

No thanks I'm just kind of randomly surfing while on the loo.

No thanks my adblocker went out of business/stopped working/I forgot I was in private browsing mode I'm going to fix that right now.

No thanks I have 12000 unread emails from things like this and I don't feel like setting up another filter and trying to decide if this goes in the misc or business folders

No thanks i do not care about breeding labradoodles/cooking authentic Cajun food/the latest tech news and deals I just need to figure out how to cut burs out of my dogs hair/get a recipe for gumbo/figure out if anyone else is having connection issues
To be fair, it functions how it is supposed to, it WORKS on the platforms it is supposed to work on (not without bugs, of course), and is not likely to completely fail at any point. However, it is still a crazy, relatively unique mess for me to figure out alone. My life sucks until I can figure it out.
مشاهدة فيلم Monday at 11:01 A.M. 2015 مترجم – سينما فور اب
From your site (attributed to cure53):
"Cyph provides security from a broad range of cryptographic attacks"

From the actual conclusion:
"Cyph claims to provide security from a broad range of cryptographic attacks"

Whats the deal here?
It is end to end encrypted when you are one of the participants and you own the server. Thats what I mean by its the best secure communications solution I have - I can sholder the work of getting a valid cert, but once its setup as long as I trust who I'm talking to is who I think I'm talking to, I am sure nobody can evesdrop because its my server. And for the people I care to have private conservations with, downloading / install Mumble on their phone or desktop is their regular patterns of behavior and isn't inconvenient at all compared to insanity like GPG or OTR.
Potential partner or clients for recently developed genetic algorithm
Hello,

I completely new to the website but I have been advised that this might the right place where I can seek people sharing ideas similar to mine.
I have build an algorithm based on the human immune system which manages to defeat antigens with several generations faster than the original version of the algorithm. The algorithm itself is not something extremely complicated but the methodology of modifying it is something which hasn't been done before.

I have performed full statistical analysis in order to be sure of my firm statement. I am turning to you in order to ask for an advice on how to find potential partners interested in working with me on the further improvement of the algorithm and eventually finding clients for the product. The potential applications of the created algorithm can vary from medical uses to creating prototypes of anti-viruses programs. If anyone is interested, please leave your details and I will contact you shortly.

Mr. 1101
This is not strictly true, and happens when complexity is needed for some of the simple lower level parts or due to the libraries and tools available changing over time.

For example, lets say the 10x engineer wrote fast inverse square root [0]. Most people would look at the code and not understand what's going on. It requires a lot of domain knowledge but provided nice speeedups at the time. Is it more complicated than necessary for some problems? Absolutely. However when used frequently as originally intended that speedup allows for more compute to be spent on higher level components useful to the rest of the team. It would also be a pain to maintain for those unfamiliar with some of the details but can be well encapsulated into a simple function call in a math library.

Thw other case this illustrates is that code evolves and a solution available now to make a system simpler may not have been available in the past. Today the same code for fast inverse square root is outdated in favor of hardware calls, so if observing the code now it is certainly over complicated for the solutions available at hand.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root
We can vote with our cultural ethics.

Putting this on the front page of HN so that other media outlets pay attention is one such technique.

Conversely, by voting with wallets, we show support for the very minds that enabled and legitimized this toxic decision.
My prescription for a fix:

1. Require age diversity in the workplace.

2. Replace "at will" employment with "just cause" employment

3. Get rid of noncompetes at the federal level.

4. Replace binding arbitration with employment tribunals (as used in the UK).
Nothing follows a normal distribution at the ends. Almost everything has fat tails.
Apple's Project Magnolia
What is Apple's project Magnolia? http://www.mapistry.com/hubfs/apple_project_magnolia_record.pdf
Looks like it some sort of facility for thin-film fabrication. Thin-film batteries? Maybe due to their acquisition of Infinity Power Solutions - http://www.luxresearchinc.com/news-and-events/press-releases/read/apples-printed-battery-acquisition-likely-disappoint
I can relate to the allegation that baby boomers like to 'keep millennials down' - I truly cannot stand aspects of family renunions with aunts, uncles, even my parents who casually dismiss the majority of things I stand for or aspire to as 'a phase' or as 'nerdy'... meanwhile they swear by Fox News, pedal oversimplified, uncompromising viewpoints, and are more interested in talking to me about how I find time to party than the projects I work on ("Work hard, party hard, Orthoganol"). I sit at my grandfather's table when I can, maybe it's just an effect of old age, but I feel like his generation better understands the important things.
FWIW: Dan runs HN, all of it.

https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements
Ask HN: How not to use Facebook's instant articles and load publisher's website?
In Android, iOS and/or desktop.
[http://instantarticles.fb.com/]
I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly. MVP has been bastardized in most shops I have been in. What's actually built is a "minimally compliant product." We need a better name for the idea that we are searching for something valuable for customers to buy. How about Market Viable Product which is the anticipated end result of the process of searching for product/market fit?
PulseAudio uses ALSA under the hood. You're dealing with all the problems of ALSA, and have a brittle, crashing, overly complex userspace daemon sitting on top of it.

If you don't need any of PA's features, why bother with it?
I am not sure but the way from UMTS to LTE was purely technical. In UMTS the sender just spams out the signal for all receivers and you need to retransmit more because the error correction keeps kicking in. So the more devices in a cell the higher the latency, variance and lower the bandwidths.

With LTE each device is measured by the tower about how well it can receive data and the tower time slices specifically for this device. So when the tower sends there, it does not send to any other device.

(That's my understanding of the situation)
I think it's difficult to argue that Bitcoin hasn't failed - perhaps not completely (as in total collapse), but it's certainly not been the financial revolution that it was proclaimed to be a couple of years ago - shortly before the price tanked and it's not recovered.

I say this as someone who had an incredibly interesting year a few years ago, getting into mining bitcoin and other crypto, and who holds what was at one point a few thousand £ of bitcoin. I still hold the same about, but clearly worth a fraction of that amount, but I'm not expecting the peak value to be reached in the near future.

The technology has shown itself to be viable (with sensible changes made), but bitcoin is tainted in the mind of the public as tied forever with organised crime, drug dealing and purchasing of illegal goods anonymously. I could be wrong (I hope I am!), but I think while the technology will survive, bitcoin itself is looking sadly dead in the water.
Yes but the Rust type system cannot express monads, so they aren't monads in the type sense (they don't implement a specific Monad trait).
> LTE really do deserve the name 4G.

Indeed. I live in a rural area and until recently I was too far away to get reasonable broadband, so I switched to LTE exclusively and no that there is fiber I have no reason to downgrade yet since I'm quite alone in the cell. Stable and fast.
Why Erlang looks like it does
Why would it? Suddenly having to always look up your standard library's basic functions will slow anyone down.
The Collaboration Curse
Thats why you cannot expect them to understan PGP and PKI. You want a sane default that can secure 99% of people and expose the guts to the last 1% through options menus.

The perfect PGP secure email client would be cross platform and provide its own email server. The client has included trusted keys to communicate with upstream, but when you first start it you make your account and that generates you a signing and encryption key based off your password, backs it up on their server (remember, its password protected, they cannot access it despite backing it up) and then whenever you sign in on other device your keys are downloaded and just work.

This basically turns PGP into username / password, but the only alternative is to use wifi to send your keys between devices when you first start your client of choice - IE, you start it for the first time, it says "do you already have an account? You say yes and it simply asks which PC on the lan has your keys, it communicates with it, you confirm on the other computer to send the keys, and it synchronizes your keys cross-device peer to peer.

And I worry even that is too complicated for my grandmother to be willing to put up with to stop the NSA from reading her emails.
Congratulations, you are now better than 99% of "data scientists" out there.
No I strongly disagree. The better engineer should take a complex problem and create layers of abstraction such that any idiot can manage the problem. It isn't sufficient to just solve harder problems, they need to rotate the basis such that it becomes a simpler problem, or change the problem so that it is simple, or comprised of simple components.
The last statement was more in regards to the Blub definition implied by the article. Of course, people who are immersed in programming language theory are not Blub programmers - they are aware of what is possible, but are also aware of the inherent tradeoffs.

With regards to Rust, do you have any idea when more meta-programming features like variadics and non-type template parameters might be available in the language (are we looking at months, years, or decades)? Rust, has a lot of features that really interest me, but seeing the tuple serialization code brought back bad nightmares of simulating variadic templates using macros in C++ before I had a compiler that supported C++11 variadics. To me, at least personally, it felt like a step backward from C++14, and kind of curtailed my enthusiasm for doing a deep dive into the language. My test for the power of a language's type manipulation is how easy is it to write an implementation of apply(Function f, Tuple t) which will call f with the values of t. I would be most interested to see how Rust will implement this kind of metaprogramming.