skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>Their conspicuous absence seems to indicate something is amiss with this analysis.

As I said, these services exist, they're just not very prominent.

That doesn't mean they're not valuable, it just means people don't think they're valuable, and I'm not certain that's a rational decision.

I think if you asked people whether they'd pay say £10 extra on a £300 appliance to be reasonably sure it doesn't have a hugely annoying design flaw, a lot of people would pay.

But if you ask them to pay £10/month for access to a website that gives them that kind of information (even if they can cancel it after one month), they feel like it's a waste of money.

>if all the free, evil ad-sponsored content on the internet is of such "low quality"

I'm not saying the content is low quality, I'm saying the advertising itself is a low quality form of product information.
Hell, it works so well you won't even get legitimate requests.
Not my idea - it's been around for decades.

It works because you can treat the two kites as one system, because they're both connected to the ship.
Looks nice, but I think there are already some good introductions to Erlang. I wish there were more things like this: http://www.erlang-in-anger.com/
That's a great article! Bookmarking.

But, what does ANY of this have to do with me? I learned to avoid (well, mostly avoid :-) the "well actually" trap almost two decades ago and have spent the intervening twenty years mentoring younger engineers out of that habit.

What I was actually responding to was the idea it was better to "speculate" about who played Snape, or why is the sky blue, or is vim BSD or GPL licensed rather than look it up.

I'd rather have conversations about Alan Rickman portrayal of Snape or what impact the sky being blue has on our emotional reactions to blue or why vim is clearly better than emacs.

Also, Canadians, in general, don't tend to discuss politics in that manner, at least not in mixed company. We have more political parties and our views are more fluid. I have, for example, voted for 4 different political parties in my life time at the federal level alone.
One fine day someone in the Home Computer marketing division decided that "Games involving shooting things are bad, we're going to stop making them."

Six months later there were massive purges in marketing.

Not soon enough, IMHO. I might respect a moral position, but mayyyybe you should have a business plan to back up your moral stance (if that plan is "We're going to go out of business because our resolve is strong" then, okay, I'll respect that too -- but say it so we can at least have a discussion about your continued employment). The games that resulted from that decision were horrible and never even paid for their development.
NASA aeronautics budget proposes return of X-planes
Show HN: Go Graphics – 2D rendering in pure Go with a simple API
Orienteering was mandatory in my school when I was a teenager. Interesting memories... :)
Something about law enforcement causes practitioners to stop seeing themselves as peers of the citizenry. It is probably similar to the paternalism physicians exhibit toward patients despite the fact that they recognize the problem and train themselves against it.
Actual Wi-Fi access point, Ad-Hoc WiFi, WiFi mesh, Bluetooth
Check out the Serverless Framework if you are looking to build entire applications on lambda - http://www.serverless.com
Ask HN: How to find freelance computer vision experts?
I'm working on a computer vision/machine learning project that could benefit from some guidance. While I have looked for consultancies, and even emailed students or professors that I thought were exceptional, I have had very little luck. Does anyone know where I could find an expert in this field for some consulting work? Thank you.
I'm not sure why this comment is being down voted. This comment is spot on. As a neuroscientist reading this article I asked the same question.

It is so easy in clinical research to be fooled by randomness and the placebo effect.
We recently switched from a source package using MySQL to the omnibus package and the migration to Postgresql was really easy and went without a hitch.
Quantum experiments designed by machines
17 Email Marketing Lessons I Learned After Writing Over 1,000 Promotional Emails
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In practice, for example, webmail spam filters tend to be (virtually) culturally neutral because they're driven by voting over large populations. In cases where someone writes a specific policy, yes, it will be culturally biased. That may be inevitable.

If you're talking about email spam, then Tor blocks SMTP outbound, and big webmail services all treat send attempts from Tor with suspicion, so yeah you'd not see much direct SMTP spam from them.

And yes, Tor tends to already be blocked by any reasonable abuse filter, whereas the big networks are too-big-to-block, so that's where spammers focus their efforts. But that's why the big networks have full time outbound abuse teams (what I used to work on) and do spend significant sums of money on trying to keep their networks clean.

You can argue that they're not doing enough, but when it comes to stuff like that, there is always more that can be done.
Exact same thing as Node allowing people specialized in javascript to easily transition to the server.

There is nothing for me in it, there is nothing for you in it, but there is something in it for the swift developers (and thus, for IBM).
For a newbie in this domain, how do we start doing our own toy forecasts (lets say for Bay area)?
30,000 Newsletter Subscribers in 12 Months (Startup Lessons Learned)
I used TurboTax for years, but last year they messed me up so now I will never use them again. They wouldn't E-File my NY State tax form for my business because of some missing information on their side and kept saying it would be available soon until right before the deadline I gave up and switched to TaxAct in a hurry. Then I had to wait for Intuit to refund the cost of my software. It was a very unpleasant experience. I didn't like TaxAct as much because I was used to the Turbotax interface and it couldn't automatically pull in the numbers from the previous year, but I think it worked out OK in the end.
The telcos strike back - this could get very interesting.

Another article [1] seems to suggest that this will clearly go against EU net neutrality rules, so it makes me wonder if they have something in their back pockets, or if this is a sign of desperation.

[1] http://fortune.com/2016/02/19/three-network-ad-blocking/
Tech Interview Torture Chamber
I'd assume that one of Florida's senators, Bill Nelson or Marco Rubio, was responsible for ensuring that the backup system landed in their state. One person's pork is another's 'crucial jobs and infrastructure earmark.'
It is not OK to just randomly avoid doing optimizations allowed by the C standard because they might trigger bugs. C depends on undefined behavior for performance. You depend on these compiler optimizations to get good performance out of the programs you run every day.

Geoff offers a simple succinct example of optimizing based on undefined behavior in another comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11147068

I tested with GCC, Clang, MSVC, and ICC, and found that only GCC removed the checks and optimized the function down to a constant. Clang, MSVC, and ICC instead generated code that matched the programmer's clear intent.

Are you sure they would be better compilers if they matched GCC's behavior here? I agree the GCC authors are far from stupid, but I think there might be a difference in philosophy here rather than just a missed opportunity for optimization.
Can i use dnf update on fedora to update the gitlab package if I have the repo installed? I am on fedora 23 and doing dnf update doesnt upgrade gitlab. Also doing a dnf install gitlab-ce gives me a message that gitlab-ce-8.2.0-ce.0.e17.x86_64 is already installed.
2 miles is amazing range. Bear in mind, these aren't
huge towers hundreds of feet above the ground with
50kWh power sources and million dollar price tags,
they're battery-powered, handheld, and consumer-priced

This guy did 7,600Km at 10mW on the 30m band, using a raspberry pi and a couple passives: https://gerolfziegenhain.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/raspi-as-w...

Of course, the antenna was 44 feet long, and he was transmitting at 1.46 baud, using WSPR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSPR_%28amateur_radio_software...

As Shannon proved in the 40s, you can get great range if you can sacrifice bandwidth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-channel_coding_theorem
Great that there is a more powerful computer helping predict the weather! One should know that weather is a chaotic system and after three days its very hard to predict the weather correctly. This is known by the lorenz equations.

http://www.uvm.edu/~cdanfort/research/danforth-bates-thesis....

Here is the UK met office. "Most of the time the atmosphere behaves rather like the lower-left picture where we can predict with confidence for a few days and have to use probabilities thereafter. "
http://research.metoffice.gov.uk/research/nwp/ensemble/conce...
+1 on everything you just said. A dedicated radio (FRS, GMRS, MURS, or amateur VHF) -- along with GPS and other survival gear -- is essential in the backcountry. Carry a cell phone, but don't rely on it. I see folks doing that far too often.

That said: Having just done some research on distress beacons, I just want to point out that there's some better options than SPOT beacons out there.

The problem with SPOT is that they're entirely reliant on GPS and having a clear view of the southern sky. If either of those aren't met, your SOS message might not go through properly. Since folks often buy these for life-and-death situations, this is a problem.

I'd recommend an actual 406 MHz PLB (personal locator beacon). The big benefit is that these are triply redundant: GPS via geostationary satellites, doppler shift triangulation via low-earth orbit satellites, and old-fashioned direction finding on the 121.5 aircraft distress frequency.

As an added bonus, since the PLB network is run by an international government organization (COSPAS-SARSAT), there's no subscription fees either. It would be unfortunate if you didn't get rescued because you forgot to pay a bill.

The only downside is that you don't get breadcrumbs or non-emergency text messaging. I think SPOT (and the Iridium-based InReach devices -- which seem to have better coverage btw) make great satellite communicators for this purpose. I just don't think they're good emergency beacon replacements.
I agree it's foolish to do a dangerous trip with just one navigation method. But that doesn't mean your phone isn't a good tool, or that we'd have less emergencies if they didn't exist.

I develop an app called Gaia GPS, which a vast array of backpackers, wildland firefighters, and SAR use as a tool to navigate in the woods. They use battery packs and rugged/insulating cases with their iPhone and Android devices to make them durable and long-lasting.

Even if you are a master orienteer who knows how to use a compass and a map with great skill, there are situations where you will be safer to have a GPS along too (either a smartphone or standalone unit). Situations like I have been in, where there is so much snow coming down, that you can't see the trail you're following or cutting, much less peaks or other landmarks.

In some situations, map skills and reckoning may get you home, but seeing yourself clearly marked on a map will make you safer too. People shouldn't fear GPS devices or phones as tools for survival and navigation.

p.s. This comment is FUD and based on anecdotes from two articles about Scotland.
Facebook is using AI to make detailed maps of where people live
Me too. But in this case looking at a video of a few seconds would be much more clearifying then reading a text, looking at pictures and trying to imaging how useful / efficient this will be.
> Can we not drag this down to the media scare tactic that is child pornography?

You mean can we not use the crime Apple has essentially made impossible to secure a conviction on? No, I'm sorry. Kids being raped matters.

> For every sicko who's trading child porn there's dozens, if not hundreds, more who're trying to escape an abusive partner, leaving gangs, getting away from sexual slavery, or whistleblowing on government or companies breaching the law.

None of which is remotely related to phones being unbreakable by law enforcement.

> If Apple create this ability its use will extend past the immediate issue and affect people who genuinely need this security

A fallacious slippery slope. If you let the Police search my house, they will search everyone's house without a warrant and therefore it's bad to have any searching ever.
Great job GitLab team! Way to go! Unfortunately I cannot use it for my projects till the issue https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/12920 exists. Hopefully, it will be resolved some time in the future.

I am firm believer in FOSS and I am very glad with GitLab embracing it as much as possible without affecting their revenues. I have started creating my new repositories on GitLab from this month
I wrote up a little survey[1] of the on-the-ground installed energy storage landscape nearly 2.5 years ago now (when I was first learning how to make graphs outside of excel), and really not a whole lot has changed since then in terms of trends. Pumped storage remains the vast bulk of grid-level storage, and while we're still not building any new projects, there has been a fair amount of movement on the permitting front[2] this decade following the relative drought of the 90s and early 2000s. A few new battery projects have come online as well.

I feel like I've been reading about LightSail since I wrote that post (which feels like a lifetime ago, particularly looking at charts made in matlab, which I probably haven't touched in 2 years), and I hope it really does start showing up soon at small commercial sites and eventually with grid-level deployment, deployment of new electrical infrastructure tech is exciting!

[1] http://btus.us/the-state-of-our-energy-storage/

[2] http://www.ferc.gov/industries/hydropower/gen-info/licensing...
I think you're both talking about FRS.

Many commercial two-way radios support both GMRS (up to 5 watts - $65 for 5-year license) and FRS (up to 500 milliwatts - no license req'd). Most users just ignore the GMRS functionality on their 2-ways.
Visual C++ Compiler Optimizations (2015)
I think the comments nearby about high communications bandwidth required by dense systems of equations are true -- basically they distinguish a tuned, integrated system sold by a vendor like Cray from a row of racks with commodity systems.

The point I wanted to add is that ECMWF, generally acknowledged to be the leader in NWP, also uses a pair of large Cray supercomputers (http://www.ecmwf.int/en/computing/our-facilities/supercomput...).

Note that the Cray XC30 uses Xeon processors and a custom interconnect. The old ECMWF system used IBM Power chips.
Buddhist monks celebrate the Makha Bucha festival – in pictures
Bittersweet, but mostly bitter?
I think a tor client is adequate proof-of-work
The letscrypt auto thing.
Back in my day, they called this the Slashdot effect.
Clearly I indicated that one finds all types of personalities amongst poor people. I explicitly state this in my third paragraph.

I acknowledged that I misunderstood you in the very comment you replied to. I explicitly acknowledged both your belief in the existence of toxic welfare recipients (in paragraphs 2,3 and 4) and those that are "great to be around" in paragraph 8.

Apart from explicitly acknowledging and responding to your points, what else can I do to make you believe I'm not "demonize[ing] and distort[ing]" your opinions?

There is a difference between more and all.

I explicitly acknowledge and address this point in my last sentence.

You are not rich enough to afford someone to clean for you as frequently as you like so you conclude labor is way too scarce?

Scarcity is when we don't have as much of something as we want. So yes - labor is scarce.

A solution you endorse is to force people to service your needs in exchange for welfare benefits.

On the contrary, I'm proposing forcing fewer people to service the needs of others. Currently I'm forced to service welfare people's needs; but if a welfare person has a toxic personality and is unwilling to work, I'd like to end that use of force.

Also, as far as paying market rates for labor, this article (and me, in agreeing with it) is explicitly advocating that we bring wages closer to market. Again, did you read it? It proposes making information more available (by helping welfare recipients access the gig economy) and reducing subsidies that shrink the labor force (via workfare requirements).
Personal self driving cars will have some form of override for a long time if they ever get rid of it completely. I could see them being locked into a slower supervised manual mode once it's well established though.

The control-less versions will be Uber/taxi replacements that will drive much more constrained environment. They'll be dropping you off and moving to the next fare not parking in your tight garage or unimproved lot.

Also in the fictional semi-authoritarian scenario where the police can redirect your car they've probably been given a lock out on the manual controls too.
Very little, around 60kB free if writing programs in C language.
That's a 25% raise, which is large. They can do what they want but the OP was indicating that they haven't mucked with Prime pricing and they have.
Really, you should just buy a CB/VHF radio. As someone commented above, iPhones are not rugged enough for the kinds of use you might need such a radio in. And batteries can be changed/etc. They really are not expensive.
I don’t know about the 2 mi range - but the 23 mi range is in best possible conditions, line of sight from mountain top to valley. Those same walkie talkies advertise a 1 mi range in a "Neighborhood"
SDR GPS constellation simulator
This is yet more speculation: while Google's efforts have produced cars that rely heavily on detailed pre-mapping of surroundings, there are others, such as MobilEye, who seek to have the car navigate with almost no pre-mapping. We have yet to see if one model prevails over the other.
Awesome that theres a release.. but just as I'm migrating from one server that it has it built from source to a new one that uses the omnibus package.
technically i think it's called stochastic systems biology
Supposedly, and also supposedly the Secure Enclave doesn't defend against this, depending on who you ask and how they're speculating. I've yet to see anything authoritative on this from someone in a position to know for sure.

The good news is that if you have a good password, not just a simple numeric passcode, you should be safe against this sort of thing regardless, unless the authorities can coerce or trick you into revealing your password.
Which browser are you using? I am using Chrome and the back button worked as expected.

This is a neat little hack!
I don't know why an e-filing system couldn't handle that, form wizards aren't rocket surgery, you'd just have e.g. a page were you select types of loans outstanding, which would insert steps to fill in relevant information. And the system could even remember that year to year so next year they'll be preselected and if you haven't taken/discharged anything you can just nextnextnext to whatever section comes after that.
How often do you take a picture without needing to set the focus, or at least watching the screen to see when the app has finished its autofocus? More generally, beyond changing the volume or initiating a voice query, how much can you really do without pulling the device out to use the screen? Lack of hardware buttons and tactile feedback can't be fixed in software.
I've got a 4 pack of gotenna's, and the hardware seems good, but the android app is pretty bad. Pretty sure a solid Android dev could bang out an app with better functionality in a good solid weekend of hacking (assuming they were using an SDK that abstracted all the BTLE comms).

Android app is missing some great features like automatic group location updates. Right now you have to get location updates manually broadcast to you by each person in the group. Lots of crashes too.

I applied for an SDK but haven't heard anything back in three months. Feels like the project is dead, as there have been no android app updates in that time either.
> There used to be one Linux, one BSD, and a couple of Windows / DOS. Mac was probably around too

And AIX of several releases. And HP/UX. And SGI Irix. And Solaris + SunOS,
again, of several releases (mostly backward compatible, though).

Don't say it was easier then than it is today, barring the young guns
constantly breaking their new Node.js packages and Ruby gems.
Computing will help. But we also need new fundamental technologies that get us information that old methods from molecular biology miss. DNA sequencing isn't everything--we need to be able to look at ALL of the biomolecules within an organism and their dynamics.
Sourcehoney – Before Show HN: Open Source Idea Network
Yep. An older CSS-only tabs trick involves using <label>s for hidden radio inputs and toggling visibility with the :checked pseudo class.

From a screen reader supporting standpoint, this :target solution would be better if not for the back button problem.
Another approach is to use hidden radio buttons and labels
IE4 was head and shoulders above Netscape 4. IE4 is recognizably a modern browser (by introducing .innerHTML), if a very poor one by modern standards; Netscape 4 was hackery on an engine taken way beyond what it could sustain. Netscape require a long time to catch up, and the helping hand Microsoft gave by slowing down dev on IE round about IE6. There was a long window where IE was the best browser by pretty much every measure and I'm pretty sure it overlapped this lawsuit, though my brain and the calendar don't always get along perfectly.

You can argue that IE was that good due to Microsoft being able to leverage its monopoly to develop something for free they could never have afforded to develop otherwise, since that argument basically won in a court of law give or take some nuances. But, in the meantime, IE really was a better browser for a good long time.
I assume they mean the 900mhz band in the US. How is a cell phone supposed to communicate with the Beartooth? If its not a cell tower, the phone only knows bluetooth and wifi on 2.4/5Ghz.
Them's are some drool-worthy specs:

http://cdn.bgr.com/2016/02/screen-shot-2016-02-20-at-11-50-3...
Relativistic litho-braking?
I ordered something from Amazon, with Amazon as the seller, and with the Prime filter checked. It was marked as having low remaining inventory. After I purchased, and the item failed to arrive with the rest of my order, I saw that it had been moved to a separate order, from a different seller, with an additional $10 shipping charge and an additional week of delay.

Look, Amazon, you have a real problem with sorting and filtering. What I really want is a way to order goods by the final, bottom-line price, including all taxes and shipping costs. If something costs $20 plus $10 in shipping, it should rank after a similar thing that is $25 plus $0 shipping.

The Prime filter is the only way I can even approach that problem from my end. It forces the cost of shipping to be included in the price of all items, at the expense of not seeing potentially cheaper items. But even then, Amazon can't even manage to sort correctly by price. Nor does it handle quantities in a package very well.
I will be publishing electronically both on compellingsciencefiction.com and through ereader markets like Kindle. I just opened the submissions page yesterday though, so we don't have any published material yet. I have no plans for physical (paper) publishing. I'll be adding more detail to the site this evening based on feedback I received here.