skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Who are "these people"?

The person who opened the bug report asked about a process that's relevant to the purpose of the group (flagging inappropriate language early in places that can be hard to change later, like APIs). There was a previous case with a flag named "suicide", which was removed because it was deemed to be in bad taste. The flag was a honeypot for arguing about the tastemaking question, so once the process question was answered, the thread was closed and locked.

Seems reasonable to me. There's certainly distraction around politics-style questions of taste and language, but it's not a bad thing to address the concerns of the community in a formal and standardized way, which is what that thread was nominally about.
>If someone is so mentally unstable that just seeing a word in an API screws with their head, their problem is sufficiently serious that they ought to seek immediate psychological help.

It almost seems like child-like behavior. "I don't like this, so everyone has to change to fit my whims." Of course, there's almost certainly valid reasons for wanting change - it's probably not a good idea to make rape jokes or similar in your code[0] - but this seems over the top. Things in the world are going to be offensive, and if seeing a word causes that much trauma for someone, then they probably have bigger issues than just a symbol name or something.

[0] Not saying that anyone has done this
Probably and it will not be supported by Microsoft or Intel/AMD.
Vending machines certainly track purchases. They just don't track the people making the purchases.

The Internet can be the same. Lots of people buy X. Let's offer more if that. Y is a high traffic location (L as in URL). Etc.
This reminds me of the Network Auralizer (http://peep.sourceforge.net/intro.html).
Testing React using Enzyme
So what you're saying is you want conferences to be a safe space for nerds, with none of them beginners or people with different ideas about what a good community looks like trying to mess things up?
It's worth noting that the details of the reasons Crockford was uninvited have not been confirmed by any of the parties. This article takes speculation from elsewhere as announced truth and proceeds to dismiss inclusivity as a goal on that basis.
I have pondered trying to use talkback to operate my phone while i need my eyes elsewhere.
I'm wondering the same thing, tbqh. Is there something I don't know about this Paul Straw guy?
I'm a liberal with three daughters and I'm certainly pro-inclusion but this repulses me. We've grown as a society to over-indulge people with fragile personalities. Yuk.
Salary transparency is different from tax and income transparency, though.

I agree that salary information should be more public. I'm not so sure individual income or other tax information should be.
> trivializes the issues that the inclusivity group cares about

Actually, the article demonstrates that the group's aims are trivial. "Trivialize" implies that the group is actually trying to do something non-trivial, rather than, say, punish someone for making a few completely inoffensive jokes.
Well lately, everything seems to be focused on JS, no? There's node.js, react, angular, $JAVASCRIPT_FRAMEWORK_OF_THE_DAY, ... So if JS is most of what you hear about, and if the community does actually have low entry standards, it seems logical that it'd be the community that would attract the most issues.
You know that Jaguar is owned by a Indian company, right?
Another reminder: Jitsi Meet

https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet

Try it here: https://meet.jit.si/

It's a modern, WebRTC-based replacement for Skype, Google Hangouts and other video/audio conferencing solutions.

And it's great. The company I work for is now using it exclusively for meetings and telepresence. The echo cancellation is outstanding and you can even connect it to a SIP server. No client is required besides Google Chrome or Firefox. There's nothing that comes close to it in terms of sophistication and quality.

It works well for one-on-one and audio calls.
Here is what the Read me has to say:

"WORLD MAP"

The SPoC presently runs WORLD MAP as its primary program. A graphics
display of a world map is overlaid by the Orbiter's current trajectory
status. The following information/functions are available.

Current MET
Fixed coastline and Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network (STDN)/
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) coverage graphics
Day and night areas on the earth's surface
AOS/LOS and identification of next/current ground communication site
AOS/LOS and identification of next/current TDRS coverage
Current and two predicted ground tracks
Current position of the Orbiter on the world map
AOS of the next earth observation site
AOS of future earth observation sites
Current F-stop
F-stop for the selected earth observation site
Predicted Site Acquisition Table (PSAT) Display
Table of TDRSS AOS/LOS
Communication/Earth Observation site reconfiguration
Latitude and longitude of the Orbiter
Time to Orbiter sunrise, noon, or sunset
Sun glint position on the world map
Sun glint look angles
Longitude and MET of the next/previous ascending node
Time until/from the next/previous ascending node
I think you're absolutely right. What I find really funny about this, at least in software development, is the "adoption" of the "agile" process they want to strive for which puts the majority of authority into the hands of the people doing the work. In the meetings talking about how wonderful it is, they are all on board, until they realize when they try to put it in place, and suddenly they realize they aren't in control. Then, they blame the process for failing them.
We only need the one story on this on the front page, and it's here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12422420
The smartphone boom is finally over
That may be a great attitude to have, but unfortunately it's not the attitude that most humans have.
Agreed on all points.

With clustering -as that has overhead - I'd expect it to perform at least as fast as Elixir or Go.

Of course you can also just use multiple cheaper single core servers too! I've seen that used a lot for certain applications - kinda overkill here tho.
That isn't at all what I said. I specifically stated that I've seen other people say that, not that I myself think that. Of course different ideas are good; if we didn't have them, we'd be stuck in the stone age still. However, if the JS community does indeed have lower entry standards than normal, it stands to reason that such a conclusion can be reached pretty easily.
That was years ago. The crazy thing is that it is still true.
Makes me wonder what could be done with a pressure sensitive screen and something like electrostatics to produce "texture".
MacOS’s keychain, and LastPass.
Location: SF Bay Area

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: no

Technologies (roughly descending order of familiarity): Scala, Git, Linux, FreeBSD, TDD, C, Matlab, LaTeX, EE, Python, PHP, CSS (Bootstrap), Javascript/React

Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxEKMNUsku5cTXdBTmowX3RCOF...

Email: akovacs101386@gmail.com

============

I am an electrical engineer and a software engineer always willing to learn new technologies. Currently my chosen title is junior full-stack developer as I would like to work in a web development job where I have responsibilities from back to front. I am interested in a full-time position or projects of a few months' length.
I disagree with this idea in the specific domain of Web Browsers. If a vulnerability is discovered in a codec that ships with Firefox, Mozilla can have a patch out within 24 hours. They only have to test that codec against their own browser software.

Microsoft and Apple can technically roll out a similar patch within 24 hours, but will rarely do so except for major bugs, which have significant baby-punching abilities, as they have to test all of the rest of the operating system software against changes to system libraries. (Linux users get to update their libraries independently, so my argument doesn't really hold water there.)

Since my web browser is one of those bits of software that I regularly expect to load code that I will not vet, from developers whom I don't necessarily trust, I feel like I'd rather have it loading codecs that were designed with the web in mind. I don't think I trust it running my OS codecs, especially for more complicated formats.

This still doesn't mean I'd expect Mozilla to write their own codecs from scratch; certainly they should pull that codec in from an open source, well written and well supported library. But I think they're in a better position to respond to threats and patch domain-specific issues out of that library than my OS vendor is.
Do you have a connection to funding?
I agree: overzealous activism is a real problem when it makes people fearful of freely participating in public discourse.

I disagree that retaliation is a constructive response.
I wrote up some ideas about a scriptable cross platform accessibility integration system called aQuery, like jQuery for Accessibility.

http://donhopkins.com/mediawiki/index.php/AQuery

Morgan Dixon did some wonderful work at the University of Washington called Prefab. Some of the links from my page to his papers are broken, but here's his web site and a demo:

http://morgandixon.net/

https://prefab.github.io/

Prefab: The Pixel-Based Reverse Engineering Toolkit
Prefab is a system for reverse engineering the interface structure of graphical interfaces from their pixels. In other words, Prefab looks at the pixels of an existing interface and returns a tree structure, like a web-page's Document Object Model, that you can then use to modify the original interface in some way. Prefab works from example images of widgets; it decomposes those widgets into small parts, and exactly matches those parts in screenshots of an interface. Prefab does this many times per second to help you modify interfaces in real time. Imagine if you could modify any graphical interface? With Prefab, you can explore this question!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4S5ZtnaUKE

Imagine if every interface was open source. Any of us could modify the software we use every day. Unfortunately, we don't have the source.

Prefab realizes this vision using only the pixels of everyday interfaces. This video shows how we advanced the capabilities of Prefab to understand interface content and hierarchy. We use Prefab to add new functionality to Microsoft Word, Skype, and Google Chrome. These demonstrations show how Prefab can be used to translate the language of interfaces, add tutorials to interfaces, and add or remove content from interfaces solely from their pixels. Prefab represents a new approach to deploying HCI research in everyday software, and is also the first step toward a future where anybody can modify any interface.
Brexit will do nothing for the fact that big businesses pay less taxes than smaller businesses. What is the most robust connection linking EU departure with reigning in big business practice?

Or framed another way, what is the most robust relationship linking Brexit with the decline of big business dominance? How is the marketplace going to become more egalitarian now? Are people seriously predicting a more egalitarian and regulated UK business environment due to exiting the EU?

As far as I understand, the UK's membership in the EU, along with Ireland, were part of the problem in helping businesses lower their tax rate, such as with the Isle of Man, which is technically not part of the UK, and is so wielded by the British government to help big businesses evade taxes and regulations.
The thing is, I've not seen it. I've known a few immigrants, one from Poland, that has had them called. One had observation and classes, the other nothing. I'm not saying that any of it is perfect, as it isn't that anywhere, but what you are saying isn't either.
Can confirm that Jitsi Meet works fine without headphones in Google Chrome. Google spent a lot of time optimizing WebRTC.
I guess thank the ADA. Both Apple and MS don't want to be left outside of places because of it
I'm going to try to go meta. Wish me luck.

PG had an essay a while back about things you can't talk about.

I've found lately that there are many topics where you just can't mention them at all online. I will not list these topics. To do so would just invite the kinds of conversations that end in a death spiral.

I'm reminded of the old joke of accusing somebody that they are in denial. Once you do that? There's no way they can reply without agreeing with you. It's a semantic trap.

There are scads of topics like that today. People have taught themselves the appropriate kinds of wordplay such that they are able to declare certain areas off-limits.

Our society, world, and species depends on open and sometimes offensive civil dialogue. I find it depressing that so many people have paid so much money for an education and are not aware of this basic prerequisite for a modern world.
Yes, Datasets.co. A site for sharing/indexing machine learning datasets.
I guess it's me, but this while system and all those scared comments here of people afraid to have the gov. Know which guns you have, completely baffel me. I expected some smart individuals here, being able to recognise how weird this whole attitude is, but I am sorely dissapointed.
I liked it much more when open source was about the code and not the people behind it. Nowadays I worry that I might be called out for using a piece of code (however good it might be) just because the person who wrote it does not use "inclusive" language.
A chapter from The Originals talks about that. Specifically a junior CIA agent who got sidelined for her suggestions and ideas, only to have them taken seriously once she was senior enough.
Blanqd. It's a prett neat daily news headline quiz app concept. Built hybrid style and works on both iOS and Android. The quizzes are generated daily using NLP word substitution hacks. Could be cool/lucrative if someone had the energy to put into promoting it, adding in app ads, maybe making it player vs player, etc.

http://blanqd.com

hit me up at mr.manager@blanqd.com
I can't tell whether we agree or not. The idea that misogyny is such a third-rail issue that anything you can six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon connect to it is lethal? That's (to me) repellant, and if Crockford is being uninvited from this conference because of his "strong stuff in programs" bit, that's ridiculous --- in the sense of, "worthy of ridicule".

That's my point: these things are judgement calls. There aren't simple rules. To me, sound judgement suggests that making allusions to physical strength as part of a metaphor about code is perfectly all right (you might not like the metaphor, but you might not like lots of things Crockford says).
You can't just make-up new definitions for words to fit your narrative.

Distrust of a government does not correlate to racism against the people under it. And since there's no basis for comparison you have no way of knowing the level of distrust one has for any or all governments. Therefore you can't gauge if there is any bias in the level of mistrust for the Israeli government.

By your logic, anything other than blind acceptance of any and all actions by the Israeli government is likely racist in nature.
To me, this sounds more or less like 'and then after high school I'll go to college' mental model of what it means to have a career. Working at a startup, then having a startup, then becoming a VC is how a guidance counselor might describe the career of 'entrepreneur'.

My advice, trust your gut. What matters is if it is a red-flag for you.

Good luck.
Sigh. What I obviously meant (btw, you should read up on the Principle of Charity [0]) is that banning speech is not the goal, it's a means to an end, and one that society has already largely accepted.

Enforcing a certain level of civility in a given place of discourse isn't "banning" and it isn't a free speech issue. It's a basic prerequisite for human interaction.

The "inclusivity" movement is just trying to extend that concept to be sensitive to groups of people that historically have not felt comfortable in certain technical environments.

Argue about the implementation if you like, but please don't assume bad faith on the part of everyone who tries to make tech a more welcoming place.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
Does Conflict Drive Cooperation?
> I'd argue that enough were to give Leave the win.

In your document I read "48% people think that immigration is one of the most important issues facing Britain, just ahead of the EU referendum". The Remain camp proposed to increase immigration.

48% voters for the Leave camp as a start, that's pretty pretty high! Plus whatever % they convince about leaving Europe for other reasons. Total 52%, I'm surprised the result isn't higher actually.
Ask HN: Christmas Gift Ideas to Introduce Kids to Programming/Tech?
Hi,

I have these 3x kids in my extended family who I'd like to get Programming/Tech-related gifts for this Christmas.

Ages 6, 8, & 10.

When I was around their age I built electronics kits from Radio Shack- the ones with those springy connectors. I did that for years, & it paid off when I got older. I'd like to provide a similar opportunity for them to get started early on the 'tech of their time', in hopes that it'll catch on & help them later.

What do people here recommend?

Thanks :-)
Sure, Tor traffic has always been suspicious, but that suspicious traffic has traditionally been without an attached political label. By branding Tor as a tool specifically for HR campaigns, you risk drawing additional ire from regimes considered to have a poor HR record.
Inclusivity groups risk harnessing the energy of both marginalized groups decent, good people and marginalized groups willing ... in order to empower amoral power-hungry sociopaths (if not outright bigots) who wish to enforce their will on the world and demonize certain enemies.

In other words, it's politics as usual - just in this case, "left-leaning San Francisco" politics in the "technology" space. A pity, as when this happens, it becomes a groupthink exercise and critical thinking is most unwelcome (hampering the realization of real diversity and inclusivity). Instead we're left with the Vocabulary Police game and pluralism is dead.

(To say nothing the "this guy supports a political party I don't like; let's conspire to destroy his livelihood" witch hunts, which are rarer but even more vicious.)
I can help you with the sysadmin/devops stuff, if you want contact me: hn at leandrosf dot com
What's shocking to me is the extent to which some people think this is OK. This is why we will never run out of prison camp guards and executioners. They're on a continuum with the sort of people who will formulate a product to conduct mass murder. It's a sanitary mass killing. They're addicts, after all. I've got qualified immunity as a DEA agent if I'm formulating opioid painkillers with a drug that will give you liver failure so you have plenty of time for a slow painful death, denied a transplant due to "drug abuse." It takes a special kind of ghoul.
They might make it technically possible but I think Apple have really dismal chances because they didn't do their own GPU dock when they started using Thunderbolt.

It will take a few years for external GPUs become cheap and simple, game and tool developers won't start prioritizing the first adopters when they don't prioritize Apple much if at all.

The only way I think they can fix this is if everything they release from now on just supports VR to make it an immediately attractive sized market.

I think it's more likely they'll ignore VR on x86 and focus on VR on iOS instead.
> Imagine Tor published a policy document stating: “The Tor Project proudly advances drug-use by creating and deploying usable anonymity and privacy technologies so people around the world can circumvent local drug laws.”

"Imagine"? If you think this is hypothetical, bub, I have some bad news for you about the current perception of Tor.

When I think "Tor user" I think of illicit pornography, black market drugs, and human rights activists. Those are pretty much your options. What nation is okay with the first two, but not the third?

"Oh shit, we knew he was moving $2m USD in heroin, but we had no idea he was documenting human rights abuses! Apprehend him!" Please.
Details Emerge on China's 64-Core ARM Chip
Very interesting. I have been paying attention, but I guess not well enough. That makes sense and falls along the same line of thinking as... you make what you measure.
Right, this is what I mean: different people mean different things by "dependency hell". Difficulty of upgrading is certainly a possible meaning, but it's not a unified term.
First they came for Brendan Eich and I did not speak out because I was pro gay marriage.

Then they came for Douglas Crockford and I did not speak out because I did not attend JavaScript conferences.

Then they came for me—and it did not matter because I am a C# programmer.
I think it is important to note that you can only see the amount of tax payed, not the actual income. This obviously correlates with strongly with income, but there are a lot of factors that affect the amount of tax payed. Person A and B with the same income might pay a very different amount of taxes.

As others have also noted, if I wanted to learn the income of a fellow Norwegian, he would be notified that I had requested this info. This prevents a lot of snooping. I would suspect newspapers and magazines to be among those who request income information the most, and then typically they request information about the wealthiest and most powerful.
American Indian, American Chinese, and American Thai food are all cooked with huge amounts of sugar. It's kind of gross when you realize how much sugar is in curry or general Tao's chicken, chicken tamarin, volcano chicken...
I might also be a bit worried as a speaker that people looking over the speaker list might think I was one of those that lead to the disinvite and thus be a poor person to invite if for no other reason than further hassle.
This is all so ridiculous. Easy to throw out fat salaries to do meaningless stuff all day when you're playing with funny money (everyone has to look busy to keep selling the story to investors).

We haven't even figured out a way to get people from home to work quickly and efficiently in Silicon Valley but people are working on maximizing the earning potential of your coffee machine.
The stuff you are citing, btw, is basically an accepted conspiracy theory as well. The problem is that it really isn't the truth as you are stating it.
Codecs often aren't written by the OS vendor. Throughout the 2000s a lot of Windows users got their codecs via less than reputable codec multipacks from sites that may or may not be reputable. The VLC/MPC-HC/Web "just works out of the box" method is more user friendly and secure than a bunch of independent binaries, written by various people, which may end up conflicting with each other.
Honestly I don't think that "textured" screens would help all that much, audio can just convey so much more information.

For example, when you have the android accessibility stuff on, when you scroll in any kind of list, it makes these tones. They start at one pitch at the top, and end at another pitch at the bottom. After a bit of use, you start to intuitively understand where you are in the list just by the pitch it's making.

Other things like vibrations for when you are hovering over important elements and more really lets you "see" what is there pretty well.

What would improve it is something 3d-touch-esque. Being able to have a light touch be "hover" and a hard press be "touch" would make it much easier than the current system (IIRC it's double-tapping for touch, and other things like 2-fingers for scrolling)
Amazon and other big cloud providers get xen security fixes first, there was an HN discussion about it. Some they've probably already implemented the fix.
um is not "guys" a gender neutral term these day I have in the UK certainly had female colleagues us it in that way