skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yup. The way I understand it is that graphics pipelines today (maybe always) are quite different from the procedural API that OpenGL provides. That mismatch causes all sorts of problems, for example that using the OpenGL APIs "naturally" can be extremely inefficient, whereas trying to access the GPU pipeline naturally is really convoluted and you have to get it just right in non-obvious ways.

The structure of the GPU pipeline appears to be sufficiently settled that we can now expose it more directly. That way, talking to the GPU in a way that's natural for the GPU is at least straightforward, even if it's arduous.

It seems like you should now be able to build APIs that are both at a higher level and not in conflict with how the hardware actually works.
Google Makes It Easier to Take Machine Learning Models into Production
Huge props to Apple - here's hoping against hope that Google, Facebook, and Amazon get behind this.

One thing I was wondering is how Apple is even able to create a backdoor. It is explained toward the end:

"The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer."

This is actually quite reassuring - what this means is that even Apple can't break into an iPhone with a secure passphrase (10+ characters) and disabled Touch ID - which is hackable with a bit of effort to get your fingerprint.
The accent circonflexe is not going anywhere. They're only dropping it from some words on "u" or "i" where it doesn't bring anything, either for prononciation or to distinguish from a different word.

So it will disappear from "coût" and "paraître" but not from "jeûne" (because "jeune" has a different meaning). It's staying to "e" and "a" (être for example).

Too many people read headlines, not articles. The rumor that the accent circonflexe will be gone completely has spread up because people are too lazy checking the source and just dumbly repeat what they hear.
Gambling, prostitution and theft rampant among Yale monkeys
So, Apple says that "the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation."

https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

If it's possible to make such a "backdoored" build of iOS, then there are state actors who will be throwing $Millions at doing it already, with or without any willing help from Apple.
The problem that it's solving is security vulnerabilities like this one.
Phew. Wait! I'm still renting a flat.
“There was a typo in PHP's mersenne twister implementation”
if you are interested in the technical details of iOS security: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf
I went through a similar process recently after getting fed up with Apple's direction. I ended up getting a Surface Pro 4. The build quality seems good, battery is ok. The software/drivers are terrible - it rarely wakes up from sleep, and I don't get much delight from using Windows. Hoping Linux support improves in the near future.
Oil Drillers Exposed in Three-Way Hedges
Wait not in vain
23 Year Old Delivers a Powerful Message
Latest telemedicine bill could save $1.8B by waiving Medicare restrictions
there is a lot of pressure for things not to go wrong, so the testing(unit and system) requirement can be higher. Timelines are normally longer too - due to this pressure and politics

Banking/finance bonuses are also capped at 15-25% pa normally - so if the company does badly you dont get a bonus, but if it does well you dont get that much of a bonus in comparison to other areas of the business
> Yes, the crapware is unavoidable. but who doesn't ship with that?

Microsoft's own-brand surface line, for one. Even MS has realised that the crapware situation is out of control.
Man, community managers for all the biggest PC manufacturers must be rubbing their hands on posts like this.
Apple to Oppose Judge Order to Help Unlock Phone Linked to San Bernardino Attack
2 - 3 months from the purchase
Have to agree. It's always the small details that aren't obvious at first blush.

Here's another one that always gets me about PC laptops: Air vents on the bottoms so I can't safely rest it on anything soft that would block them. On my MBP I only have to worry about the very back.
For what it's worth, I used to say I would take some experimental treatment when the time came. Not after doing research myself and seeing first hand what "experimental" really means when it comes to medicine. It means: no one has any way of really knowing what is going on. For example,

1) There will be some studies where a measurement was higher in the treatment group compared to controls, but it is not 100% clear what combination of things is actually being measured.

2) There will be other studies you hear about that got different results, but didn't get published because publishing "negative results" is discouraged and bad for careers.

3) The criteria for publishing a positive result is a p-value below an arbitrary threshold, and most people researching medical treatments really do not understand the meaning of a p-value to begin with. There are all sorts of myths like it is the probability the treatment didn't work, etc. So (at least the implementation of) the basic criteria used to judge success is fatally flawed.

It is quite scary and I don't see anything I can do about it but make people aware there is a problem here.
Beiersdorf Forecasts Higher Sales on Nivea Brand Strength
I don't have any formal education in economics, but...

The reason that a bank holds government bonds is different than the reason a private investor would do so. Government bonds are the strongest type of reserve a bank can hold. Less safe reserves require a discount from face value. So for a bank there is a balance of risk between cheap and safe reserves like Treasuries and more expensive but better returning paper. A bank is always going to hold a mix of paper as a reserve[1].

China? China hold's US debt in order to be able to stabilize their currency against the dollar. And to backstop the value of their currency on the world market.

I don't see anything abnormal about any of this.

[1] For a bank, if the ratio of loans outstanding vs reserves in hand gets too low they can't loan out any more money. And since a bank makes money on fees inability to make loans is bad bad bad.
Yeah and learn nothing. Have you read patents?
Also, many people use it only intermittently, maybe once every six months or so when they have some data to look at. Rather than try to relearn the language and its quirks yet again, it's much easier to take what you did last time and tweak it until you get what you need.
You're right it doesn't matter that China has loaned us tons of money. You can talk your way around it and Wall Street and the American media outlets have done this for years but it does not change the facts. China continues to grow as an economic threat to the US and we don't want to believe it.
No shortage of the real stuff here.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/department/article/parmigian...

I don't buy it very often because IIRC it's about $25 a pound. It's even more expensive than that, because the rind isn't edible.

edit: I don't think that adding the rind to soup or stew qualifies as "edible". It won't kill you, but I'm not going to make stew just to use it up.
Agreed. The M3800 workstation is what I chose after a similarly frustrating search to the OP's over a year ago.

It's all subjective, but big pros for me was Win7 (as a business machine this was available over a year ago, at a time when most new laptops were Win8 only), really good Debian support (with VMware I rarely need to boot into Win7 now), 16GB RAM option, two drive bays (mSATA and SATA) so 2TB SSD is obtainable, very high resolution screen (3200x1800).

Cons - gloss screen occasionally frustrating, all that space and they relegated page-up/down and home/end into Fn-accessible keys, short battery life, 15" is perhaps too big (but 13" is untenable as a mobile computer), poor touch-screen support in Debian, hideously expensive when properly kitted out (16GB, after-market two x 1TB drives, best display, etc).

In any case, OP has some good points - with Lenovo breaking everyone's trust (and their keyboards going downhill) options for good GNU/Linux mobile workstations are drastically reduced, and it's a painful process to try to work out what hardware support is actually like before you actually have a new machine in front of you.
This is exactly the threat model this was designed to defeat, so I would imagine not. At the very least, if there is a way to do it Apple is probably unaware. If they are aware, they'll probably open themselves to a class action suit, as its one of the core features that they advertised.
Ah my bad; I read somewhere it was much much less. Maybe that's outdated information. But when people say 9 hours, basically I get 3-4 out of them... Usually.
Dude. That's great.
The fact that courts don't have ways to handle edge cases is a huge problem with our case law style legal system.
I think it's safe to say a lot of people in tech have the same knee jerk reaction (I know I do), but sadly what are the open alternatives?

Closest I can think of would be Android, but you're throwing a lot of flexibility and openness out already. I had high hopes that FxOS would grow into the {reasonably hackable, consumer pricing, works out of the box if needed, higher abstraction (eg. don't make me think about my kernel) system APIs} market.
Right now, to have any degree of control beyond "here's a GUI with the 5 settings we thought you'd need", you need to use way too much relatively advanced knowledge (setting a 'nix ARM system up, hardware quality, commitment to maintaining your setup at a fairly low level) for it to be widespread.

I guess I'm asking the smart people on here why can't we have a tablet ecosystem more akin to the mid/high end desktop market? (Emphasis on modularity, _standards_ and interoperability)
Do the actors in that area reckon there's not enough interest/commercial opportunities in contrast to the OEM/OS siloing? Or is there a project out there I should start throwing contributions at?

((EDIT: please don't say Canonical: the GUI is nonstarter because of limited resources, and if you're using server editions then we're back to the original low-level problem in this case))
Serious question: what is Uber/Lyft specific about a customer being assaulted? Is that inherently different than rapes or assaults by taxi drivers? Cause I'm sure there's been plenty of cases. Don't get me wrong, those are horrific, but I guess I'm failing to see what in Uber or Lyft makes it easier to happen or why it might require special regulation.

Maybe the fact that cab drivers need a licence and are thus screened more thoroughly?
If you would have gotten the Latitude 14 7000 instead of the XPS, then you get the Intel wireless + BT out of the box which always seems to just work.
It also has an option for an insane 10-hour battery; the default is like 6.

Unfortunately Dell never puts the Latitude line front and center on the website, so you have to know to look for them.
Well, in OpenGL it would take you at least 100 lines of code. Don't forget that glBegin and fixed function pipeline is deprecated nowadays. Sure, with that you can draw a triangle in 10 lines. For modern OpenGL you have to create vertex and fragment shaders, send uniforms, create vertex buffers, upload vertex data, set up vertex attributes, and only then can you render. Vulkan is just the next step of that. Also, a lot of Vulkan code is something you will wrap once, and unless you need the absolute best performance and finetuning you can just stash it in some utility method. Creating an image takes 40 lines of code? Put it into a create_default_image() method and it's only one line of code from now on.
In Munich, a fightening preview of the rise of killer robots
With the due legal process the police can search property, safety deposit boxes, bank accounts, vehicles, etc. etc. Why should a smartphone be any different just because Apple says it is ?

As much as I value privacy I really don't agree with Apple's stance here - if due legal process has been followed, why shouldn't they be able to read the contents of an iPhone ?

And yes I get that third party encryption can be used, which isn't owned by Apple and that there's little the authorities could do about it - but that's not the case at hand here.
The method by which vaccinations work is immunological. I think the most exciting frontier in cancer biology is prophylactic (preventative) vaccination. If we are able to develop effective vaccines against cancers, that will very much change the game.

This is currently a research frontiers area--but in 10-20 years, I believe that we will have made significant inroads on it.
My real issue is finding a decent 13inch laptop that allows 2x4K Monitors at 60hz via simple Docking.

The Surface Book failed in that regard and I haven't gotten confirmation from Dell that the TB 15 Dock will support it.

In the 15 inch Category there is only the HP Zbook with its gorgeous 4 Thunderbolt Ports that allow it. But that's Desktop Replacement, not a portable 13 incher.

Currently I drive 2 2560x1440 Monitors on my Surface Pro 2, one via MiniDp and one via USB3 and am kinda happy with it, I just need more ram... But upgrading and then once again hitting the limits so soon would give me buyers remorse quick.
Clariant Profit Rises in Fourth Quarter on Catalyst Demand
The limited-liability corporation is fundamentally flawed when it comes to massive negative externalities. Even if regulators take AirBnB and Uber for every cent they have (and I hope they do, both have shown themselves to be fundamentally inimical to the rule of law), the people and organizations that funded their criminality will get away with nothing worse than losing their investment.
The fact that they can create this backdoor, doesn't that mean it already exists?

What Apple needs to do then instead of writing this letter, is release an update that closes this backdoor.
The thing is, in a free market, greed is checked. IRS, not so much.
Cheap Flights  London to Zurich Switzerland Round Trip on Flychecker
> The fact that they can create this backdoor, doesn't that mean it already exists?

Quite likely.

As I posted on the other discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11116343

> If it's possible to make such a "backdoored" build of iOS, then there are state actors who will be throwing $Millions at doing it already, with or without any willing help from Apple.
> lose a private key that they generated for me

Found your problem: you should never have someone generate a private key for you.
Carl Icahn sold 7M shares of Apple
The yearly peak for California, is in the afternoon, on particularly sunny days in July or August. The peak is slowly moving later because solar is shaving that peak and saving everyone lots of money.

https://www.caiso.com/Documents/CaliforniaISOPeakLoadHistory...

Your document shows January and March, which is when the duck issue is at its worst. The peaks in these months are two or three times lower than the yearly peak, when the system has to work at its most stretched.

And remember this is net load, as those lines go lower, the actual demand is rising slightly, it's just being provided by solar rather than the utility.
> Why should a smartphone be any different just because Apple says it is ?

Because it is possible to create a smartphone that is impossible to break into. The others it is impossible to create one that is impossible to break
"the police can search property, safety deposit boxes, bank accounts, vehicles, etc." - that they can, doesn't mean it is right. If you read the entire letter, you'll see that creating the backdoor means tomorrow the Chinese government can see the nude pics on your phone (with 'due legal process', of course).
This reminds me why I don't live in Sydney. Even Melbourne is better than that. Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth and Canberra all have IT jobs as well where you commute will be a small fraction of that.
Right but that market's volume changes over time and China gets to choose, with in some limits, when to sell off their bonds. This gives them potentially much more leverage than a static view of the situation might imply.
> I'm not really into conspiracy theories as a rule, but I will admit to having a similar thought.

Though I agree with the substance of your comment, I don't think it's a 'conspiracy theory' to expect a VC to have her percentage in mind. That's just capitalism.
We need Elon to jump into PC business.
The lack of data structures in R is a totally fixable problem.
This is not the government asking to search a single vehicle or safebox, to take your examples. This is the government asking that every safebox or vehicle in the world be made instantly unlockable by design.
Not getting an iPhone, even secured - Check!

I bet hardware vendors are just salivating at the concept of having to produce thousands of iPhone cracking docking stations.
Oh yes, the kid thinks he would spot the error in mathematical formula earlier
than PHP developers. Except, well, he didn't.
But all those things also apply in the US in say, Houston, Denver, Chicago, St Louis, DC and other places and their housing is half what ours is.
Judge Tells Apple to Help Unlock San Bernardino Gunman’s iPhone
I believe there's exponential delays enforced on attempts, so it would take hours to enter 10 incorrect pins. Not something you can do while they're at the bar.
200 lines for a triangle is roughly comparable to what it takes on D3D or Metal. This is the level of control that graphics and engine programmers require to make things run efficiently.
What do you mean by drivers are terrible?
Do some components fail randomly in Windows? Or do you mean they just don't work with Linux?
Just asking because I'm planning to buy a Surface Pro
The major difference is that a warrant to access a safety deposit box allows the keys for that specific safety deposit box and no other. What the FBI is asking for is the equivalent of asking for a master key to all the safety deposit boxes to access just the one box. Given what was revealed in the summer of 2013 by Snowden, I think we'd all agree that the FBI and other state agencies (not just American agencies) will use the software as a backdoor to access whichever iPhone they choose. Let's not be naive.
Passcodes are only 4 or 6 digits.
An app for practicing language listening skills
They have $3.9T worth of cash reserves sitting in a vault in addition to holding over $1T in US debt.
Hi all,

This site is born out of my frustration when trying to learn a new language. It is a "language learning application", but you won't learn a language by using it. I made it to practice one specific (and I think important) thing - the skill of listening a new language.

The idea is simple, the site contains short user-uploaded voice recordings with transcription and translation.

Here's an example in Spanish: http://lisn2.me/exercise/1455534102678176880 . Users who learn Spanish can then listen to it (with/without transcription and translation).

After that you can exercise listening to chunks of the recording and then guess the text and translation: http://lisn2.me/exercise/1455534102678176880/quizes/guesschu...

The second exercise is to listen and type (in the original language): http://lisn2.me/exercise/1455534102678176880/quizes/dictate The app will show (in green or red) when you got the transcription right.

This is still a proof-of-concept, the site html is very simple (but to be sincere, I like simple html websites:) and there are some bugs.

Now, I'm looking for feedback/suggestions/questions before deciding how (if) to proceed with this project.
Run a system command. Shutdown your system by running a java class
Exactly. I think OP is a bit fast and loose on the definition of area of interest.

It's not that it's bad if it's this case. It's that is bad if it applies as a built-in backdoor for whenever they feel like using it.
Just buy an ASUS ZENBOOK, and you're good to go.
The US view of the constitution as a sacred document is quite unusual by international standards. For many people in many countries the constitution is just another law.
Im generally not an apple supporter(i dont like the closed eco system), i am very plesantly surprised they posted this.

I am quite disappointed that the us courts are trying to force apple todo this, and in my opinion, its just to use this case to set a precedent.

I hope Apple cant get it to work, but id hate to see what the courts would do if that happened.
Bacardi and Cuba fight for rights to Havana Club label
Let f(n) = the nth term of the sequence (where f(1) = 1, f(2) = 2, f(3) = 5, etc). You're saying that f(n) = 3^(n-1) + f(n-1). It also happens that f(n) = 3 * f(n-1) - 1. If we started this sequence with a different value, like 1000, these rules would yield totally different sequences; but it happens that our choice of starting value means these rules are equivalent.

Why is this so? It will help to observe that f(n) = (3^(n-1) + 1)/2. Let's check if your rule is then correct:

f(n) ?= 3^(n-1) + f(n-1)
<=> (plug in observed formula for f)
(3^(n-1) + 1)/2 ?= 3^(n-2) + (3^(n-2) + 1)/2
<=> (multiply by 2)
3^(n-1) + 1 ?= 2*3^(n-2) + 3^(n-2) + 1
<=> (subtract 1)
3^(n-1) ?= 2*3^(n-2) + 3^(n-2)
<=> (add up multiples of 3^(n-2) on right)
3^(n-1) ?= 3*3^(n-2)
<=> (identity)
T

And then let's check the other rule.

f(n) ?= 3*f(n-1) - 1
<=> (plug in formula for f)
(3^(n-1) + 1)/2 ?= 3*(3^(n-2) + 1)/2 - 2
<=> (multiply by 2, distribute 3 on right)
3^(n-1) + 1 ?= 3*3^(n-2) + 3*1 - 2
<=> (simplify right)
3^(n-1) + 1 ?= 3^(n-1) + 1
<=> (identity)
T

(I'm using approximately the proof format described in EWD 1300: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/E...)

The totally formal thing to do, rather than "observing" the formula, would be to prove by induction that the formula was correct (i.e. that the given rule, "n -> 3n - 1" with n starting at 1, yields it). How would one come up with the formula in the first place? Generally, if your rule involves multiplying by k every time, then the nth term will probably have k^n in it--though if you started with, say, n = 1/2, you wouldn't get anywhere. Is there a totally generic, plug-and-chug procedure that would yield a formula like this? Approximately, yes. For now, I'll just link to the Fibonacci series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Matrix_form
Well the FBI would have to have the iPhone in their possession to unlock it I presume. SO that's one level of security - I don't think the USA has become a place where property can just be confiscated without reason (I hope I am right here). If Apple were custodians of the unlock process then only once due legal process had been followed would an iPhone be unlocked i.e. Apple would own the unlocking mechanism. Maybe in the CEOs safe...
I don't think that the police can compel you to not make a very good safety deposit box, just to compel you to open it if you have the capabilities.

I agree that due process should compel Apple to unlock if they have the capabilities to. But no subpoena can beat math, right?

EDIT: I just realised that what the FBI is talking about is a backdoored version of iOS. To me the compromise seems to be writing the backdoored version but leaving it in Apple's hands (so Apple could send the FBI the data but not send them the OS). The only problem with that, of course, is that such a backdoored version could then be taken by a judge.

Honestly, it seems like the judge could force Apple to hand over the OS update signing keys to the FBI...
I had this same problem almost exactly a year ago. I now have a Surface Pro 3.

I wanted a decent CPU, high res screen, , good build, long battery life and small chassis. Then I chose whichever was cheapest which met those criteria.

I've not been disappointed with my decision!