skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet that there are sophisticated mail merge features in Office that don't exist in LibreOffice. The other major killer feature that I'm aware of in Office is the track changes feature. There are work flows that absolutely depend on that for cooperative editing and sign-off.

You can do these things other ways, but once the workflow is entrenched it would be really hard to move people to something else. If you've never seen some of the insane mail merges that people do, you might think it would be trivial to implement, but alas it is not.

Having said those things, it's been quite a while since I touched a word processor (5 years or so). When I last used Libre Office there were some other obscure bugs/features that made me want to throw it out the window. The main one was the way it formats multi-lingual text. If you try to write text that switches between roman and asian fonts, good luck in keeping the baseline in place. I made an attempt to convince people to change the idiotic way it is done (by shrinking the font size!) but had no luck.

I'm not a fan of Office either for the record, but I can see why some people do not want to change.
PlatformIO IDE: The next-generation integrated development environment for IoT
And if debootstrap is too minimal have a look at the debian 'standard' live iso. This is a headless install that has the package management &c.

I find it useful as a live image and as an installer that allows off-line installation then subsequent connection to the internet to install a customised desktop.
China has every right to protect their potential $5 trillion in trade. International law does not matter. No one else will fight them for it. To do this, requires lots of sand, casinos and go go dancers. Capital flight from corrupt officials' relatives will feed lobby machines and eventually quell these Western Dalai Lammy cliques worldwide
I'm curious at about how much freedom the Kenyans have after they accept it.If it's an experiment, there will be data collected. Having someone record every purchase you make and giving you constant interviews or more for ten years might be a lot of hassle.
Rover raises $40M Series E
And there's a 2 week pre-election period where you can vote any day of the week.
All things equal; doing on voting on weekends would make people in jobs more likely to vote. Which would be an advantage for one party and not the other.
Thanks for pointing out Klocwork, I haven't heard of it until you mentioned it!

Sorry for the title, I was aware of its clickbaitiness but thought any way of drawing attention to a problem is necessary.

The example is there just to show the most minimal and obvious case where automatic tools were unable to predict the mistake. Of course, in real world things are way more complicated than that and if tools fail on simple examples like this they definitely won't be able to find anything in real codebases.
Maybe I missed something but I'd rather guess they didn't get many source contributions.

Also I read the promise as being a promise about the contributed code, not the entire codebase.
That's also my experience - I tried using OneDrive & Bitcasa at various times, and found they used far more battery than Dropbox ever did. I'd consider switching from Dropbox, but the competitors seem inferior to me (and Dropbox has more universal support).
OTOH, I used to work as a govt contractor where they routinely give 1000-page software specifications with screenshots and non-unified titles. There was no safe way to save them, let alone work concurrently, so let's just say they're not the right tool at all for most routine tasks in large companies.
I've seen a lot of white truck drivers if it makes you feel better. I'm even related to one.
I keep copy of clonezilla on a CD along with my Slackware DVD and an old Ubuntu live DVD. Just in case as emergency tools.

For messing around with random distros I just use a USB stick.
Laziest way to output an excel file:
Write an html table to a file and make the extension ".xls"

This has the minor niggle that it will throw a warning to the user ("The file format and extension of *.xls don't match...")

But it has the "advantage" over the csv approach that you can include formatting via hmtl/css styles.
I believe the bottom of L (BL) must coincide with the left of T (LT) and the top of L (TL) must coincide with the right of T (RT); however, musn't all four points coincide in order to properly reglue the \ diagonal? Wouldn't this appear as a "crimped Möbius strip" (if it is even possible)?
I thought it wouldn't work either, but I could play Portal just fine from the UK off an instance in North Virginia (150ms ping).

Granted, Portal ain't exactly fast-paced, but still.
Kindle, GOP etc: What to do with insecure email servers
I used to develop the Windows port of WordGrinder (my console word processor) using Mingw for Linux, testing with Wine and packaging using nsys for Linux. This actually worked pretty well and allowed a complete Windows development flow from Linux using the same rolling automation for both platforms.

The big problem was Wine, which can behave quite differently to real Windows in some places. It's certainly not bug-for-bug compatible. So I kept finding myself having to boot into Windows anyway for debugging, so eventually I just installed an msys development system on Windows with gvim and used that.

There was also something else wrong with mingw for Linux, but for the life of me I can't remember what. There was something about mingw being different to mingw32? Missing headers? It's been too long.
Thanks, that's an interesting way to look at it and makes complete sense to me.

At the risk of sounding like a total nitpicker, I am still a bit confused. I understand that you may measure the star's spectrum and get one result, and I may measure it and get a different result, so now we have two different (but hopefully fairly similar!) spectra for the star.

But does this mean that the star itself now has two different spectra? Or is it just that we've both measured it imperfectly and came out with different results?

As another example, suppose we have an object with a mass of exactly one gram. I measure it as 0.9999999 grams. You measure it as 1.0000001 grams.

Now we have two different masses for the object. Does that mean that the object itself now has two different masses (plural)? Or does it still has a single true mass of its own and we've both just suffered from experimental error?

I hope anyone reading this is not too annoyed - I'm just trying to understand how singular and plural work here, and to have some fun with the discussion. :-)
Or tons of helicopters trying to save those stranded on the roof?

Seriously NYC doesn't have any police/rescue helicopters?
The same for me. Author claims that remote working is less productive, but I can negate it very easily - for me, it is not. I feel much more productive when the only distractions are Facebook and Slack. They are still there in the office and we have to count in additional distractions like people talking.
I wrote a bit about this in another place, but the key to understanding the situation is to understand that the file format does not actually tell you how to format the text. Especially in the early days when rendering a font would work completely differently in each application because you never knew what font metrics they were using.

It's easier to be second to market because you can copy the leader. In this case, if you write your formatter with the intention of importing documents from the leader, then you always have a target. If you then add features which the leader ignores, suddenly they have a much more difficult time to catch up -- their formatter is not purposely built to render your file format.

As I said in my other message, I've completely forgotten the Excel file format, but Word's format was originally just a binary dump of all their data structures. That's why it is insane. It's hard to read unless your code happens to be structured that way.

Anyway, I'm +1000 with you on the importance of open and cross-platform standards. Just think about all those stupid rails apps -- your data model looks exactly like your sql tables. Then you dump those same stupid tables into json and splat them over the wire for someone to try to make sense of. Deja vu all over again ;-) I suppose I should be happy it's not XML...
DON'T POP A NEWSLETTER FORM OVER THE TEXT I AM TRYING TO READ.

I'm sure this is an interesting article but the only way we will stop this practice is if we stop giving user-hostile publications our eyeballs.
How does it make portability worse if you write your code in a way that doesn't assume anything about the size of your ints? If you don't know that your ints are 16 or 32 or 27 bits long you have to be more careful with checking for overflows, but if the code does that I don't see what problems you'll have when you port it to a platform with a different int size.
I found this unbelievable when I first came across it a few years ago.

More frustrating is when you need produce an UTF-8 CSV from excel. I always used open office calc for this as a workaround.

To import an UTF-8 csv to excel you just run the text import wizzard and specify the encoding.
Thanks, that was excellent reading.

Looking at your comment on how the file format is only declarative and sort of allows the implementer to decide what to do - this is similar to what HTML does. But HTML being an open spec, actually allowed implementers to deviate in some ways but there was still some minimum expected compatibilities, so its progress didn't suffer as badly.

But the Word file format was not even an open spec, so really, when people sometimes jump to Microsoft's defense, they are not even understanding how technology innovation actually suffers from closed standards which become dominant.

On the other hand, Microsoft itself could have benefited from having an open standard of the file format around when it wanted to write similar exporters. Why didn't it push for it, given the enormous power it had? Surely they put their business interests over what was the best thing to do in that situation from the engineering perspective?

I say all this because the more you hear from the insiders of that era, the more Joel's article is starting to look quite lopsided and biased, specifically this statement - "At no point in history did a programmer ever not do the right thing, but there you have it." It is nice to be able to fill out some of the missing details.

----

Edit: OK, are you also saying that once the initial decision was made to have a binary dump of all the data structures, there was no possibility of improving the format?

If so, does it mean that every application which had its own file format and took a similar approach as Microsoft's during that time (given that you say the original developers didn't know any better), was similarly stuck? How did Word Perfect design its file format?
Much easier: you can always register your opinion and every so often we count them all up and call it the election.
Yeah if you have a document written in LO/OO, that's true however loading still some XLS files is just akward. I mean probably due to the spec and even microsoft sometimes had bugs in their program so that at some things the spec didn't helped. like some table bugs etc.
But still I don't wanted to says XYZ is better overall or so.
I just wanted to point out that resource usage and loading bigger files is definitly not the thing were office shines at least the newer versions and also don't expect office for mac to be good, it sucks.
C already survived 44 years, so only 84 to go :)
You should know that by using Materia, you have agreed to it's EULA that explicitly says that you cannot create any similar product in terms of look and functionality.

"Copy any features, functions or user interfaces of the Products;"

https://getmateria.com/terms

So now it becomes much harder for you to make a similar product.
The Barbary wars were fought against pirates whose home ports were in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. Morocco actually gave some protection to American ships. Far as I know Morocco has always been America's friend.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars
I see there are lots of skeptics here. Well, as a developer with kids of 11 and 15 (who are not particularly attracted to the idea of programming, in general), I can say that the Mathematica environment/Wolfram Language is both fantastic and effective. So great that I'm willing to plug it despite not being on Wolfram's payroll.

After several years of trying to use this or that other language with the kids in an attempt to stir up some sort of longer term interest and to get them to begin thinking in a problem-solving way, the Wolfram Language is the only one that's managed to produce results and hold their interest.

Two of the most key features of the Wolfram Language, IMO, are the very high level of abstraction available through the many built-in functions and, as a result, the quick feedback given to the user. When I compare the reams of code that must be written in any other language to achieve only a fraction of what a Wolfram Language one-liner does, I cringe at the thought of trying to convince someone (who's point isn't to become a developer, but to simply find a solution to a problem) that they need to man-up and type a book before they can expect any appreciable results.

The book, An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language, mentioned in the article, is also an amazing resource. It begins with no expectations of prior programming experience and progresses at a decent pace with captivating examples throughout.

So, yeah, I'd like an non-commercial (remember that there are free tiers and products) environment+language that's equal (in terms of being very suitable for kids up to domain experts) to what's available from Wolfram, but from what I've seen, there is nothing that comes close. Sure, people will point to the various notebook type environments out there, but these have got quite a ways to go before they reach the breadth and slickness of Wolfram's offerings.
> Notice how smooth the 32-bit to 64-bit transition went? (and yes, it was smooth.)

I credit most of that to Microsoft and the insane efforts they make to support backward compatibility.

They made an extremely complex abstraction layer to run 32 bits applications on 64 bits OS, yet it works very well.

To this day, it's possible to run lot of applications that were written 15 years ago, seamlessly, as they were built and distributed 15 years ago.
Love it. One question, does the bacteria once it has conquered the known world does it begin to traverse backwards into the previous sectors?
I, along with most commentators it seems, consider the shift to give rights to authors (over a private, closed, cabal of printers) in the Statute of Anne to be the shift to copyright of a form recognisable today.

The Licensing Act you refer to was a censorship law, not a copyright law; it IIRC doesn't protect authors rights nor give them primacy as the creators of [copyright] works.
Yeah but then if you don't like it you're stuck with an old travel trailer or RV to try and sell(hard) or store until it rusts away(space/money).

Spending $3000 to validate a pretty huge lifestyle change isn't that much really.

We got lucky that we really enjoyed it when we bought ours but I could understand a lot of people finding the lifestyle ultimately a lot different from what they expected.
XP mode exists in Windows 7 and beyond because Microsoft doesn't promise full compatibility with Windows XP. If some XP software "just works" it's no guarantee that it will continue to work as Windows changes. Furthermore, regarding "optional software to get a VM, not a feature of the Windows OS", XP Mode is a feature of the OS in the sense that the seamless integration with the apps running in the VM was designed by Microsoft for the purpose of supporting older software.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=800...

Out of interest, which XP-era software just works without it? I'm not talking about software that has been compiled for later Windows versions, I'm talking about software that hasn't been updated since XP.
Was complete sarcasm
> Word, for example famously paginates footnotes incorrectly. They can't change it, though, because it will break backwards compatibility. This is one of the only reasons that Word Perfect survives today -- it is the only word processor that paginates legal documents the way the US Department of Justice requires.

That's actually really interesting. Got any more details on that?
The area around Seattle is actually the same exact thing playing out at a smaller scale. There are several (granted, more like a couple dozen) very popular trails and locations, like, say, Rattlesnake and Pilchuk. And then there are hundreds of great trails - some of which, yes, are hidden behind miles of forest roads, but still a lot of readily accessible ones - that don't see much traffic, but offer pretty views and/or great workouts.

And in many cases, both kinds are within spitting distance of each other - e.g. Si is always packed, but Mt Washington, right across it in the valley, and two freeway exits away to the trailhead, with similar difficulty, and just as nice views at the end, is pretty quiet.
With the result that tourists flock to Trolltunga and other inaccessible sites with no training, no equipment and no hiking clothes/boots. They start too late and get lost and cold when it suddenly gets dark or the weather turns. The local red cross is called out and have to hike up to get them down again. :-)

e: Not to say I'm against allemansretten, I love it.
>
Speech production is incredibly hard to fake at the moment.

Sound-alikes have been used in the music industry since forever.
Sorry I crashed your server. Seems like the whole sever came down with it.

Oops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

> Error: read ETIMEDOUT
I'm guessing the tremendous amount of smoke and all the obstructions on the roof would have made this impractical. The situation wouldn't have been aided by helicopters falling on to rescuers below.
It was my bad not the website.
There is a thing such as an amicable break up. You'd hope that the psych evaluation would select for people who can handle sex and relationships in a mature way without jeopardizing the mission.
To my German ears it sounded definitely English, not Dutch, like a very hard to understand dialect.
There are crazies of all religions. But to go from that to your claims about US (I assume?) need really good references.

I'd say the Obama time contradicts your claims.

The intervention in Syria for example, was just symbolical -- despite systematic torture, bombing of civilians and repeated chemical attacks that resulted in hundreds of thousands dead.

The problem wasn't exactly too much spoiling for trouble...

As I noted above, 8 dead in total over decades from the abortion clinic violence. That is a slow Tuesday morning in the muslim world. :-) :-(
Yes.

My relief in this area was discovering that most (western) non-software companies dealing will Excel-CSV know that encodings are a problem and many have settled on using CP-1252 instead of UTF-8.
>Do you already have a tow vehicle? That's probably where you need to start, if you plan > to go the travel trailer route. If you plan to live in the trailer full-time, you
> probably need a big truck to haul it; I've got a diesel F250, and it works great. With >a weight distribution hitch it'll comfortably haul more than my house (which is probably >about 9000 pounds loaded with tanks full).

Yep I have an older F150 XL pickup. It is harsh on gas consumption and with towing the trailer that will get quite a bit worse but the savings can be substantial in the long run I suppose (as opposed to living in an apartment/house)

I live in Canada and would like something that is easier for 4 season usage. I can make do with warm clothes and down blankets etc but for example while working on my laptop in the winter, it will be easier without gloves ;-)

I can do without buying new but I am not too mechanically handy and do not want to spend a lot of money paying someone else to fix any issues with older trailers. However, I would definitely be down for buying something older if it is in good shape.
Bacteria have a solution to that too though with the use of mobile genetic elements called plasmids. So the genetics of something can float in the population with locality to its relevance. Most antibiotic resistant bacteria in hospitals get their resistance from ground dwelling bacteria people walk in with their shoes.
I'm posting too much on this topic :-) Just a quick word from someone whose job it was to write filters for these file formats. They are not deliberately obfuscated. They are just the product of long lived legacy projects with short deadlines and poor process. It is absolutely obvious when you work with the formats that this is the case. Word in particular was clearly just a dump of the internal data structures in the app. It's not even that complicated -- the complicated bits come later and they are all for either backwards compatibility or for the fast save feature (or whatever it was called). The fast save, in particular, is complicated and is that way because it is append only. It is essentially a series of patches on the original data structures. Yes, it will make you want to rip your hair out, but it is very, very obvious why it's that way.
These sites are exclusively linking. They NEVER host anything.
AmigaOS 4 / MorphOS: Aracade racing game Amiga Racer 3.72
Wait, this isn't universal in the US?

In Australia I went into a prepolling station and voted a week early.

Of course, compulsory voting definitely means things like these are required, but it never struck me that other countries wouldn't have the ability to prepoll
A machine learning driven HN to automatically post URLs , blogs , news articles etc based on whats trending on the web, and be able to engage users in comments sections , act as moderators as well as facilitate insightful discussions.
Amusing, but I also have the feeling that it's difficult for Java developers to appreciate the benefits of a binary format because the language doesn't make it easy to work with them. XML, on the other hand...
> Getting rid of tons of syntax is not a sacrifice at all

Getting rid of syntax that usefully expresses common cases absolutely is a sacrifice. What was that Turing tar pit thing about making things of interest easy? Lisp is powerful, but its lack of syntax makes it inexpressive.

> It also eliminates many syntactic bugs

How so?

> makes searching & editing code easier for humans

I disagree, code that lacks basic syntax such that programmers end up writing macros, does not make code easier to search and edit.

> makes editor tools easier to create and more broadly useful when they exist

I can see how that would work, because you're writing ASTs like you're a robot, which of course machines can understand better, just not humans.

> eliminates ambiguous precedence completely

That is a totally overstated problem. I've literally never been bitten by this in about 10 years of programming. Everyone in every other language just adds parens by default.

> You begin to notice that syntax itself really is an anti-feature

Having given Clojure I think 'a fair go', I just don't see that happening. Being able to read my teammates code will never be an anti-feature.

I just don't agree with the trade-off ...
How to recover deleted files from iPhone and Android?
I believe the fake eggs are a myth as real eggs would be cheaper than anything else you can cook in ways similar to real eggs.

But it is definitely contested, as this quora posts show [1]. I am inclined to believe the idea that these are eggs from unhealthy chickens or stale or frozen eggs or combinations of that.

[1] https://www.quora.com/Are-the-fake-Chinese-eggs-a-true-story...
Macros in CoffeeScript