skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That streak of low/no support started around the time I was born. Their support of old hardware is better now than ever imho. It's a great time to own an old Mac as even the new ones are old, so you don't pay the penalty of having to upgrade which you did 5-10 years ago.
More than 30 states offer online voting, but experts warn it isn’t secure
Show HN: iOS EuroMillions Lottery checker
It's beyond being spent out. People are just off the consumption treadmill. There are substitutes for all the big heavy things people used to need.
I believe there are efficincies in the marketplace that are not captured in the financial data - everything in my daily life is much easier now that I have a smartphone in my pocket and everything is online. Maybe the fact that everything is more efficient means one can get more value with less - thus, making the daily consumer effectively better off although the capital is hurt. What does this mean for the economy in total? Everything except truly constrained things like land are utterly commoditized?
The radio in my kitchen is from ~1972, made by a local brand that started in 1930 and went out of business in the 80s when "Made in China" became a thing. Apart from being a beautiful piece of wooden furniture, when I opened it to have a look I found that it contained a sheet of paper with all the wiring diagrams and any other information needed to fix anything broken.
Every LDAP password policy I've seen only prevents the previous N passwords (usually 5 or 6), requires some combination of upper case, lower case, and numbers, and possibly some punctuation. I've never seen one that actually compares permutations of your prior passwords to check for a minimum change set.
Likewise, people were very skeptical about centralized currency/printed money when it was first introduced. Or if you want something more recent - skeptical that industry would ever surpass agricultural production, or services would ever overtake industrial goods, without destroying economy. Doesn't mean it _can't_ happen...
I'd be pretty happy if they fixed that weird "wake from sleep, 2 mins use, back to sleep" thing. But a retina would be nice. Also, move the damn power button away from delete.
Material resources are the most obvious way to demonstrate you have "power".

As for poor people with many babies -- it could be due to lack of access to birth control, or sometimes an insurance against high infant mortality rates. When your livelihood depends on how many hands are helping you in the farm, you want to make sure you have at least X babies.
When I think of contracts, I think of Eiffel. Not really sure how much it's actually used, though. Also, maybe Ada? I always wonder why Ada doesn't get any love on HN.
Right. The OP was basically proposing cutting off all that space below the keyboard though. The typical Thinkpad design shown in that photo doesn't have a touchpad but it still has the area that people tend to use as a wrist rest.
How to kill yourself in Python
My Twitter account disappeared
I'm hesitant to essentially ask for technical support here on HN, but there doesn't seem to be any way for me to contact twitter about this issue, and normally the public form to ask for support about this issue would be — well, twitter...

Today my twitter account simply disappeared. I found out when keybase notified me that it had found that my existing proof of twitter account ownership had been deleted. I tried logging in and failed to do so, and when I looked at my public profile https://twitter.com/adrusi it 404'd. This is not an account suspension because that would look like https://twitter.com/nero, and it's not a case of a deactivated account because logging in is supposed to automatically reactivate according to twitter's support https://support.twitter.com/forms

I'd be interested to know if anyone here has been affected by this same problem, or if anyone knows a way to contact twitter directly.

Edit: it seems that it I can access it through my linode VPS and my friend can access it through his VPN, but it fails both on my home internet and on my cellular.
Just looking at the latest figures can be dangerous. Sales are certainly going well, but there seems be some annoyance groving among the users and competitors are improving (for example Dell XPS 15" and Windows 10 with Ubuntu).
A "percentage of Apple's base that want a machine with an optical drive"
I'm happy to pay a little extra if it prevents any new machine being sold with an optical drive. A little bit of me dies every time someone asks for things on CD/DVD.
I'm not sure you mean it to be, but your comment reads like an anti-UBI argument.

My hope is that UBI will help grow the labor share of GDP by providing mobility to a segment of the workforce that currently lives paycheck to paycheck.
Hm, aren't there 2 directly visible pieces of evidence (at least for anyone who travels)?

One is talking to someone on the other side of the planet, where the time would be different (and so day or night instead of night or day).

The other - that the stars look quite different when you go to another latitude.

It may not be possible to question and personally re-check everything, but if you make that a habit, you'll notice a pattern of which experts are usually right and in which field (besides getting a good idea of how the world runs).

From there, you can bridge the gaps in your experience with carefully placed bits of trust.
That's been true since about 2000.

From the 1970s to about 2000, venture capital firms as a class were profitable. Since 2000, venture capital as a class has been a lose. What keeps this going is that each VC thinks they're better than average. Most of them are wrong.

Venture capital in Silicon Valley used to be about finding someone who had a good technical idea, and getting them enough money to make a working prototype or a small production run. New technology and intellectual property were the key. That was a good business.

In the first dot-com boom, this changed. Technology wasn't the issue. It became about buying market share to achieve a "first mover advantage". That resulted in a focus on growth and a race to out-spend the competition. There were winners and losers, but in the end, mostly losers.

In this, the tail end of the second dot-com boom, we see the same pattern. The big difference this time is that nobody is going public. There's just round after round of private capital. The extreme case is Uber, with a valuation greater than General Motors while still losing money at a huge rate.

This is fueled by low interest rates. There's so much capital sloshing around looking for yields that too much money is being funneled into marginal companies. That's why there are no IPOs; it's cheaper to borrow.
There's no good answer. You have to learn how to focus. You can't wait for focus or motivation to come to you, you have to make it happen. Why do new languages interest you? Probably you're just looking for something different, to escape some depression you're feeling. Instead you should focus your attention on solving problems, and then picking the right language for those problems. You may also want to talk to a therapist about depression, it really does help a ton.

I don't know much about tech in Italy but I have heard the same complaints -- culturally, Italy doesn't have high standards for quality in technology. If you struggle with that, then there are two solutions: work for a US or Israeli company, remotely if you can, or start your own business.

If you want to start your own business, I'd recommend starting a solo software consulting practice first, that way you know you can make some money on the side while building your business.
Historically, the wealthy do not create many things. When not funding wars (which do advance knowledge, btw) or accumulating capital, they use their disposable income to fund intellectual things (which can be science) and art and the crafting of luxury goods. But, they're generally not inventors. Why would they be? They already have the lush lifestyle. And, while it's fun to think about things, invention requires a lot of work and grit and getting dirty. But, worse - invention makes you look like a weirdo to your peers, who would prefer things stay in stasis. So, the inventors usually come from the middle classes.

Historically, middle classes are formed when there are unexpected population booms (because usually, more population means more production). And, during these times, there's a short window of time when production exceeds consumption. And, when that happens, there's room for excess production to go toward invention. If it is all timed right, the invention period can produce excess growth which can create more invention, etc. But, naturally, Human systems fall back to wealth inequality, because that's a stable equilibrium.

Now, it's going to be very unexpected if we have another population boom anytime soon since we're moving more toward population plateau. And, at 7.35 billion people, we'd need the world to quickly support a couple billion more. But, another big, apocalyptic war could happen or maybe disease, in which case there would be a subsequent imbalance in production and consumption. Otherwise, things will kind of reach the equilibrium point and stay there for a long time.

Basic income is cool (in my mind), because it frees up large portions of the population to invent new stuff. There's currently a very short window of opportunity for basic income (or something similar), because most elite are (naturally) against it. But, another alternative, maybe, could be if all the billionaires of the world suddenly realize that they're all going to die soon and they collectively decide to continue on this earth for a lot longer (since many don't believe in God anyway). In that case, they could dump most of their capital in life-extending inventions, and that could keep things going for longer. (The cynic in me has always wondered if that's partly what billg is doing with all his humanitarian stuff - save a few billion people, get the smartest of them into becoming inventors, and as a side-effect get (virtual) immortality.)
But... they really don't. There is a lot of things that will make the auto pilot disengage and you will always need to change the programming enroute.
Ahmed Zewail, Nobel laureate who sparked a ‘revolution in chemistry,’ dies at 70
My MacBook Air is a mid-2012, and will be good for me for at least another year or two. Very likely when it dies I'll replace the Air with a big iPad Pro and be done with having a personal (rather then work) computer altogether.
500MB doesn't really get you that far on the modern web though
Autocad and Excel have native Mac versions.
> I don't get the people who go buy a MB knowing that they need more ports and better performance

The problem is that Apple are selling MBs as the evolution of MBAs (which will never get a Retina upgrade etc etc), when they are clearly in a different category. The MB is overall less powerful and flexible than the MBA was, so a large segment of people "upgrading" is naturally disappointed.

> it's a perfect machine for browsing Internet and Word work on the go

It's a very expensive machine for browsing and Word. The market is literally full of alternatives "for browsing and Word" with same or better specs and better price points. Where the MBA was indisputably the best "thin all-use laptop", the MB is basically an expensive Chromebook with an Apple logo.
CORD – Tying the Knot with Access Networks
What do you want to do?

What is stopping you from doing it?

What can you do to remove the obstacles?

Can you work around the obstacles?

Note: Whenever I find myself in such situation these questions help figure out the next step. I posted them with hopes to help the OP.
The reinsurers give a shit about profiles about individual policyholders on the consumer level? I just can't see how that level of effort makes sense on that scale.
"Python has a standard interface just like Go's `io.{Read,Writ}er`: the `send` and `recv` methods as defined by `socket.socket`."

But a File has no "send" and "recv". io.Reader and Writer apply to files, sockets, byte slices, strings, compositions of other Readers or Writers, HTTP request and response bodies, and anything else that strikes my fancy to implement the correct methods. Sockets appear to deliberately not have those methods, as there's this line in the docs: "Note that there are no methods read() or write(); use recv() and send() without flags argument instead."

There's nothing preventing Python from having the equivalent of Reader and Writer. It just doesn't, at least not with the standard library. In fact that's true of a lot of languages; there's nothing preventing that interface from existing, it just doesn't. This is a point in favor of getting the standard library right earlier rather than a point in favor of Go-the-language.
If that is the case, the post is little more than flamebait and entirely deserving of the down arrow.

I'd also suggest the weak, half-apology is wholly disingenuous.
Ada has robust preconditions and postconditions.

Untested code follows:

procedure swap(a: in out integer, b: in out integer)
with
pre => a <> b -- just for example purposes
post => (a == b'old) and (b == a'old)
is declare
t: integer;
begin
t := a;
a := b;
b := t;
end

(Sorry, couldn't think of a sensible small example which uses both pre and post, hence the terrible precondition.)

Note that the postcondition can refer to the old values of the variables with the 'old suffix --- the values will be automatically saved on entry to the function and used for comparison later.

Unfortunately the pre- and postconditions have to be specified in the public part of the module, so can't see any private module variables, which forces you to jump through hoops if you don't want to expose your module's internal state (e.g. checking to make sure that functions on a state machine are called in the right order).

You also get type invariants, where you can specify an expression which must always be true for a number:

subtype Even is integer
with dynamic_predicate => (Even mod 2) == 0;

Or, if you really want your mind blown:

subtype Even is integer
with dynamic_predicate => (for some N in integer => (Even == N*2));

There's also a static_predicate form which only supports a restricted predicate expression but which can be checked at compile time.
If you want a laptop for comfort and convenience, gaming has to be really important to you to justify spending at least that much again on a desktop. It's something else to find money, space, and time to maintain.
Download Icloud Bypass iOS 9.4.1 Unlock Tool
A responsible enterprise shouldn't be basing production deployments on package repositories that can get yanked. Mirror that shit if you want to keep making money.
"I'm shocked to see no one here has even discussed over-regulation as an issue."

I think regulation (and the notion of over/under regulation) is a fascinating and worthwhile discussion to pursue. Honestly, it's something people should be debating.

However, I insist that you describe the low, or no, regulation regimes you have lived under (or visited for significant periods ... months/years).

When and where ?[1]

There is a "must be this tall to ride" barrier for discussing small government and/or over regulation, and this is it. As a community we should insist on this basic test of legitimacy.

[1] Yes, I'll accept NOLA. Maybe even Houston in the 90s ...
Well meaningful https. Their plans were to MITM the connection.
There are two ways producing widgets can grow 10%.

The standard way is where production methods stay the same, and 10% more offices/factories are added and 10% more workers are added. The reason this would be done is because there was a 10% growth in demand for widgets. This would be due to a 10% growth in population that could afford widgets, or a 10% growth in income for consumers/workers that they decide to spend on widgets.

With population growth shrinking in the standard consumer societies, that aspect goes out. Insofar as income, the average US inflation-adjusted hourly wage today is below what it was 43 years ago - it has shrunk. So the demand is not really increasing. Since demand for widgets in general is not going up, companies are not desperate to employ the average worker, and thus wages are stagnant (or as I said, the average US inflation-adjusted hourly wage has shrunk over the past 43 years).

When were companies investing the capital necessary for automation, technological improvement etc.? From the 1940s to the 1960s. When demand was high due to increased population (baby boom). There was a baby boom because after a long depression, the economy started paying good wages to the average worker due to strong unions and government stimulus starting heavily during World War II. Money in workers/consumers pockets led to increased consumer demand.

Due to the highest unionization rate in American history after World War II you have high wages at these growing companies. How to lower costs? Invest in automation, invest in technological improvement.

Without high wages, and some of the other factors mentioned, the financial impetus to invest in technological improvement and automation fades. It's always there, but it ebbs in the absence of high demand, high wage employees.
Dawkins and his memes should have been worthy of mention as well as Hawking with his model-based realism. The flat-earth folks just have a different model of how the universe works. It has sufficient predictive power for their purposes and, as a meme, apparently performs a function or it would have been eradicated long time ago by evolutionary pressure. That's probably true for many of the zombies. They have managed to carve out an evolutionary niche that allows them to survive for centuries. Which is rather impressive.
UBI won't help because in reality, it will not look like what it's proponents think it will.

It is naive to assume that the Congress will pass anything near as simple and elegant as the UBI proposals put forward by advocates. It won't replace many parts of our current welfare system, but will be an additional cost on top of them. It's also naive to expect that everyone will receive the same amount under UBI, which would make it neither universal nor basic. UBI proponents really ought to read this: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/wha...

It's also a fact that under every realistic* version of UBI ever proposed, the poorest people in the US would receive less money from the government than they do now, while people who do not need money from the government would start to receive it. It is therefore a regressive policy.

* by realistic, I mean "does not have an annual cost greater than the entire US government revenue."
Works like a charm! :) Thanks!
Most people don't have Adobe products on their desktop. We teach and use those products, but I'm not a psycho who says everyone needs the exact same machine. Hated that crap when I was doing development, and am not going to pull that stunt as a Sys Admin. We also have a lab GIS machines that are tricked out and cannot be replaced with anything else.
Take a vacation; you are burning out.

If you can take a >1 week you can program for fun after 5-7 days and get a sense for what interests you without work interfering. If you can only take a shorter vacation have fun and do something outside of technology and relax.

Consider working on a side project in the weeks following a break and hack on small projects that interest you. If you want to leave the .net space find local companies working on interesting problems.

Ask to get coffee with anyone in your network (or outside) to get information about other parts of the industry/other companies and methodologies.

All in all take a vacation and then spend 2 months hacking on projects and talking to anyone in any part of the industry around your area (or potential prospect cities).

> I am interested in security, c, go ect...

Talking to people actually coding in a language, securing infrastructure, doing X, will be a lot better then learning Go for 2 months and finding out that it didn't help with your core goals.

Take a break. Expand your professional circle and knowledge base. Format a plan based on that info. Execute
This is amazing! Already 40% through. I love some of the new puzzles added as well as the bosses. So glad to see this finished!
The Federal Reserve
Yep, Great Epidemic ("Великий Мор") is Plague of Justinian.
Army of White Ugric (Hungaries?) was in 898:

В год 6406 (898). Шли угры мимо Киева горою, которая прозывается теперь Угорской, пришли к Днепру и стали вежами: ходили они так же, как теперь половцы. И, придя с востока, устремились через великие горы, которые прозвались Угорскими горами, и стали воевать с жившими там волохами и славянами. Сидели ведь тут прежде славяне, а затем Славянскую землю захватили волохи. А после угры прогнали волохов, унаследовали ту землю и поселились со славянами, покорив их себе; и с тех пор прозвалась земля Угорской.

(Hungaries passed Kiev in 898).
Not quite true, even texts from 1000 years ago are quite clearly intelligible to modern Russian speakers, unlike Beowulf to English speakers.
No, it looks like the management on those things is worse than iPads, but I am still looking. Yeah, on-site is looking to be a no go.
This is India we're talking about, they'll figure something out. Might not be something cool like point to point IR links, maybe more like kids on bikes with a basket full of internet on HDDs.
Non tech advice but do you exercise? A 30 minute run ever day before work makes a day 100% more enjoyable.

Seldom does using a different language fix anything. Programming is programming.

Excercise can fix your life outlook. Better teammates can change things. Nicer boss. But seldom will language or business do that much do your day to day life.
That is incredibly uplifting and deeply deeply disturbing at the same time.
I'm not really sure that kind of comparison makes much sense.

HTTP is a layer 7 protocol, IPv6 is layer 3. Rolling out a layer 3 change is an entirely different thing and requires not just the two parties using it to be adapted, but everything and everyone in between. That plus a general lack of a positive business case for v6 has meant tremendously slow adoption.

HTTP/2 support on the other hand has been quickly added to major browsers and with a number of big players like Google and social media providers supporting it those numbers would rise much more quickly. Cloudflare and similar providers would skew those metrics too since they can accept the connection over HTTP/2 from your client but still talk 1.X to the backends.
> Their support of old hardware is better now than ever imho

No, it was way better earlier. We had some incredibly old PowerPCs running forever. Now, I have 64-bit Xeon boxes that aren't supported.
Also cool that you have demoscene releases in the selection, but as far as I can tell it's mostly very early demopacks.

Some of the most popular releases that people will remember can be found here if you want to add them:

http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?order=thumbup&platform%5B%...

These are the OCS/ECS chipset demos listed on Pouet sorted by popularity. Most of them have ADF files for the download link so should be easy to add.
It's always baffled me why more people don't seem interested in adopting design by contract, it is a ridiculously powerful tool for writing quality software.

Here's a Babel plugin which adds design by contract to JavaScript, squeezing it into existing JS syntax (the result is really similar to Eiffel) - https://github.com/codemix/babel-plugin-contracts

and here's what it looks like in a reasonably complicated program - https://github.com/codemix/malloc/blob/master/src/index.js

(disclosure: I wrote this)
Speedtest publishes US broadband report