skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Does calling "Godwin" mean we can't take any lessons from WWII or the Nazi era and apply them anywhere else at all?

The poster I was responding to was effectively making the argument that superiors responsibility for the actions of their subordinates varies inversely as a function of organisation size. Clearly that's ludicrous. The executive are responsible for control structure, management methods, reporting lines, KPI setting, and verification processes to ensure that the above are working properly. Further, and more importantly they set the tone for the ethics of the organisation both by what they focus on and by what they ignore.
"That’s why our Twitter is so good: it’s not a marketing construct, it’s who we really are."

I really wish this mind-set was more common.
I built a personal finance app using RN - https://www.titmiceapp.com/. I had some prior React.js knowledge but rest assured as long as you have javascript experience, you can do without it.

The biggest pain point so far is adding analytics but otherwise, everything is pretty smooth sailing.

Also I come from a web developer background, so structuring layout isn't too unfamiliar. AMA if you have any qns. I'm looking to pour all these experiences into a blog post before my next distraction comes and terrorizes my short-term memories
This is very dangerous. Things like this make me glad that I live in a democracy, although people in power can some times get away by doing stuff, they ultimately have to agree to the popular demands (this is also why certain dictators are overthrown by popular demand by a very big uprising, but it then disrupts the working of the country for a long time, works quicker in democracies since leaders have to listen to get elected next time)
if you don't mind me asking, was that a remote consultant or on-site?
We're on our third keyless entry car. The 2014 Chevy Volt was the worst, but they all had that feature. I had to read the manual to find the trick, but you:

* Open up the compartment on top of the center of the dashboard

* Take out the rubber liner on the bottom of the compartment

* Pop the mechanical key out of the fob

* Poke the mechanical key into an unlabeled hole in the bottom of the above compartment

And bingo, your car will start.

The Kia Sorrento we have with a keyless system is much more sane: The center panel has a really obvious place to push the whole keyfob in, and it will start with a dead fob battery.

The Toyota Prius we used to own also had keyless, and also had a place to insert the whole keyfob to start the car when the battery died. And it was also pretty obvious (and labeled).

It's only the Chevy Volt where it was an absolute mystery what you're supposed to do (unless you read the manual). I don't think I would have ever guessed that you should disassemble the compartment on top of the dashboard and stick the key into an unlabeled hole. Would have been afraid of shorting something out.
Branding 101: Beautiful, Bold Business Card Inspiration
"do not fly" list is not the same as keeping a social credit score. You don't get on the do not flying list if you speak against the US president's policies. That's the difference between democracy and the other thing (not really sure what category China falls these days)
> That's why we have floating point processing units instead of the fixed point.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean. I was talking generally. Not every situation has a single appropriate value to represent it. I don't particularly care if this one example could have used a floating point or not.

> This piece of program catastrophically failed because some input was a just somewhat bigger than before.

As far as the software was concerned the rocket had already catastrophically failed. It actually hadn't, because it was a different rocket than the software was designed for. It was "somewhat bigger" in the sense that it was large enough that the rocket the software was designed for would have been in an irrecoverable situation.

> Properly programmed components that are supposed to handle "continuous" inputs and provide "continuous" outputs (and that is the specific part we talk about) should not have "discontinuities" at the arbitrary points which are the accidents of some unimportant implementation decisions (leaving "operand error" exception for some input variables but protecting from it for others!).

That's theoretically impossible. If you want to account for every possible value you're going to need an infinite amount of memory. There will be a cutoff somewhere, no matter what. Even if that cutoff is the maximum value of a double precision float - that's an arbitrary implementation limitation. You can't just say you can more than count the stars in the sky and that's clearly and obviously good enough for everything. It's not.

There will be a limit, somewhere. It will be an implementation-defined one. As long as the limit suits the requirements, it effectively doesn't matter. In this case, the limit was set such that if it was reached the mission had already catastrophically failed. That's all that can practically be asked for.
VW CEO didn't resign;
It's not about the favor but young people miss their school life in US or Europe. And for those who haven't been to other countries, they just think it's a fashion
Does Fedora still recommend wipe->reinstall from scratch as the default upgrade path?
very nice. what were you guys developing? were you working on similar "tools" until you started the company, or was it one off idea that you grew into a company years later?
It takes months to years for the FDIC to wind up a small bank.

I'm sure it's something that could be streamlined with enough practice.
Momentarily confused between a ramjet[1] and a valveless pulsejet[2] -- the latter are played with by many amateurs( e.g.[3]) producing amusing videos of their cherry-red glow and eardrum-piercing noise.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valveless_pulsejet

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cR6bD57AKw
> Do you really believe that future humans will condemn us for killing less than 1 rat per human lost to try and stem the loss of human potential?

I think it's possible that they could condemn us for forcing rats to suffer and die for our own benefit. I don't think it's as likely as future humans looking down upon us for the awful way we treat animals we eat and maybe eating meat at all, but I can see it happening.

It seems like there's a tradeoff between ethics and the pace of progress. After all, if we only cared about progress then we'd experiment on humans. On the other hand, medicine would probably stall without any experimentation on live animals, and so we choose to do it on rats.
The issue I have with lists on how to be successful in a class is that they rarely provide much guidance on how to prioritize the work. Of course students are successful in a class when they read & understand the material before the lecture, follow the lecture attentively, redo all example problems, solve & understand all assignments and maybe read a few textbooks on the subject. The difficult part, at least for me, is how to decide what learning activity will help your understanding in the most any given moment and how to split your time between the different classes and other activities.
That's silly. If you can reasonably claim to know how to program, the choice of language largely doesn't matter. Someone who knows how to program in [first language] should be able to pick up how to program in any language one is likely to encounter in an industry position.

So the first language should be one that gives the student a firm foundation from which one can become that competent.

I've personally seen excellent introductions to programming using C (CS50x), Python (Think Python, MIT 6.001), and Scheme (SICP).
Thanks for the candor. If we were the only startup in our cohort not to raise from VCs, I'd certainly have some concerns. I think the accelerator had some flaws (it was their first cohort), and we ended up not actually being exposed to suitable potential investors, which is why no one raised coming out of demo day. You make a good point about introductions to smaller investors — that's certainly something to think about.

I agree that in most cases a startup should open to taking large checks, but we're a bit of an anomaly in that we're a licensing business with relatively light expenses. So we're only looking to raise around $300k, which doesn't make sense for most of the VCs we met through the accelerator. I understand that they have to put cash to work, and that if they prefer a 5x return on a $10M check than a 10x return on a $250k check. With such a small investment, there's basically no chance that we materially impact their fund's overall return.
I bet he will. He did last time when that article in NYT came out. He responded by sending an email which stated that Amazon will not tolerate such behavior, encouraged people to report to HR and instituted zero-tolerance policy for callousness.

Anyone know how many managers were terminated because of that.

EDIT: Found this example, who knows if it is true:

https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/home/fired-for...

To be completely ridiculous (I already started this in another comment), let's imagine Amazon as sort of a tiny country with a Stalinist ruling party running it. Here are the similarities:

* Personality cult: Bezos = Stalin

* You sing praises to the great leader: the 14 leadership principles.

* Officially they have a zero-tolerance policy for harshness. But I bet if anyone complains to HR they get sent to Siberia (i.e. put on performance improvement plan) or shot (terminated).

* The top management is the Central Committee. They wield massive power. Officially it is a meritocracy but it is all about gaining favors with the ruling party.

* In the warehouses I hear they do these group exercises: Stalin loved public performances.

Anyone wanna add more?
Slap on the wrist.

They are back in business... Sacks with a future crisis management hbs case study.

But I heard "The Macro" is not really dead. It lives. It lurks. It lurks in the bowels of the organization, slowly -almost imperceptibly- gathering strength, twisting and winding into the minds of men, all for its eventual, cataclysmic return....
How to Use [Google's] Wi-Fi Assistant to Keep Your Phone Safe on Public Networks
I thought the point of avoiding the consumption of animals was so we wouldn't have to murder things which have similar concepts of fear and pain as we do. Why would plants sending distress signals or nuts with allergens be an issue?
I obviously cannot tell what he meant, but in context I think that "tyrannus" makes more sense.
It's not ludicrous, and stating it without justification doesn't make it so. Prison is a penalty built into the law, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It's not just a bunch of jealous rabble clamoring for it.
> They had a snow storm, he got stuck in the snow and instead of being understanding they reprimanded him for it.

Punishing an employee for risking their life to try to come in to a job they already hate? That's textbook sadism, ruthless is too weak a word. In inclement weather our critical staff can depend on officers in 4x4 vehicles to bring them in, with no reprimand for being late due to the weather. Non-essential staff are encouraged to stay home and avoid injury and possible death trying to make it to work.
Statistics = Science - Mathematics - Science
Google's Support page on Wifi assistant:

https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/6327199?hl=en

To make open Wi-Fi networks safer, Wi-Fi assistant uses a virtual private network (VPN).
The VPN protects your data from being seen by other users of the open network.

When a VPN is active, you’ll see a "Network may be monitored" message.
Google monitors system data. When you're securely connected
to a website (by HTTPS), VPN operators, like Google, can't record your content.
Google uses system data sent through VPN connections to

- Provide and improve Wi-Fi assistant, including the virtual private network (VPN)
- Monitor for abuse
- Comply with applicable laws and regulations, or as required by court or government orders

What does HN think of this model?
> But the main factor driving Venezuelans to take up bitcoin mining is a price control put in place by the socialist government: Electricity is virtually free.

> Since bitcoin mining is a process, in effect, of converting the value of electricity into currency, Venezuelan miners are engaging in a form of arbitrage: They're buying an underpriced commodity and turning it into bitcoin to make a profit.

> In the process, they've gained access to a currency with far more purchasing power abroad than the government-issued bolivar

The grueling details of ongoing humanitarian crises aside, this bit is an interesting side effect.
Sketchode
Anyone serious about computers and how humans interact with them should study the works and thought of Ted Nelson. Ted sees problems differently. If it's hard to see where he is headed or difficult to understand what he is saying, just wait a decade or two and your perception will catch up.
It has around 600 Million dollar budget and employs 1000s of people. The upcoming crazy administration putting their foot on anything of that scale could be suicidal.
For my first classes this was true. Now I'm getting courses that fewer students take, and it goes like this

1. Skip lectures because the professors barely speak english and can't teach

2. Barely rush through the homework before its due, it doesn't matter if you understand it as it has no relation to the rest of the class

3. Find last semester's exam and study that for a morning, as the questions are pretty much the same.

Its a shame that the higher level courses that should be more interesting and useful end up being the most painful and disregarded.
K&R is great if you already know how to program.

If you're new to programming, Harvard's CS50x on edx is probably the best introduction to programming online and uses C. You'll learn enough to breeze through K&R and then some.
I'm just a dude who likes to build simple web apps. I only use the term 'entrepreneur' when someone has had significant impact.

I don't think you should worry about 'what is weird', try to do what you think best regardless of how it may look.
Is there not a presumption that with physical access to a machine it can be rooted if you try hard enough? I certainly make that presumption.

The number of Macs I've unlocked by creating a new admin by removing the "install is finished" file in single user mode is in the teens.
Tiniest Game Boy hides in your pocket
While it's interesting how you can accelerate Ruby, 150 fps is still _awful_ for a NES emulator on modern platforms.

It kinda shows how bad Ruby's performance is compared to most other languages.
I won't claim to know much about this, but the article claims that the graphite works because it emits "short-range radiation", which I'm assuming refers to the carbon-14 emitting beta radiation.

Depleted Uranium and the stuff that comes out of depleted uranium (which I think would account for most of the spent fuel in the United States) emits beta and even shorter alpha radiation. Does that mean that the concept could work with depleted uranium?
Haha, no, not exactly.

There is a very popular word in China - 网红. The meaning is a person who has millions of followers online. They might be singers, movie stars and celebrities. And one portion of them belong to 公知 who spread their opinions about the society and social affairs. Normally, they study in top university all over the word and have many shining titles.

Because of the low price of labor, China grows faster than almost any other economic parties. On the contrary, Chinese economy faces a great challenge if the average price of labor increases even for a little bit. Meanwhile, the crazy development of cities / railways / factories also lead to serious environmental and social problems.
As opposed to the Latin expression?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_semper_tyrannis

Legitimately asking. I'm not sure why it would be anything other than "Thus always to tyrants".
You are right. I am wrong. Thank you for teaching me!

Was not aware of this letter:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3143757-Wells-Fargo-...
I ported the recursive variant of the quicksort test and ran it on my computer. Changes I made was to replace the Windows specific timing functions with Linux-specific clock_gettime() calls. Then I also changed the rcx and rdx registers to rdi and rsi because those are what the Linux 64bit calling convention uses.

Here are my results:

sort_asm_recurse.asm 69 ms/loop
clang++ 3.8.0/sort_cpp_recurse.cpp 65 ms/loop
g++ 5.4.0/sort_cpp_recurse.cpp 70 ms/loop

Compiler flags: -O3 --std=c++11 -fomit-frame-pointer -march=native -mtune=native

So on my computer, the assembly code (barely) beat g++ but not clang++. From a cursory glance of the assembler code clang++ generates, the difference seem to be that it adds alignment to critical loops.

It is also smarter at using 32bit registers when it can get away with it. F.e the handwritten assembler code contains "xor r9, r9". An equivalent but faster variant that the compiler generates is "xor r9d, r9d".

There is also a slight error in the assembly code. rsp should be aligned to a 16 byte boundary when a call instruction is executed and the code doesn't ensure that. Likely it loses a whole bunch of performance by calling from unaligned addresses.
Absolutely, that's what I meant by "scales with historical earnings and wealth."
Yet you'd probably pay much more than that. Consider that many people pay little up no taxes (i.e. children, unemployed, etc) and presumably Canada has a progressive income tax system so the typical hacker news commenter is paying more than average tax. Children actually pay negative tax in that they reduce their parents' tax burden, in the US anyway.
The Day Bobby Blew It (1973)
OpenSSL uses assembly not for speed but for security. You need to make sure algorithms don't "optimize" leaking data.

For example, a strcmp on a secret field is insecure because of timing attacks.

The only way to ensure the CPU takes a fixed amount of time is through assembler
Show HN: Cerial – JSON, XML, and X.690 (ASN1) parser in C
Yes. Same here. I've tried Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Reddit Ads, BlogAds aimed at design websites, and a custom placement by a site itself (paid $300 for a top header ad (the best position) and got nothing from it.) Literally hundreds of dollars wasted and not a single sale. I was pissed.

People ignore ads. 1 year I was simply mentioned on DesignMilk.com and my calendar sold out. The following year I paid $300 to advertise at the top of DesignMilk.com and didn't get a single sale. That's what really made me realize advertising is highly unwanted.

When I ask around to other inventors and sellers of physical products, Advertising is just a waste (except if you're selling a high priced item that can easily make the money back on a few sales). It's a suckers game if you're like me, selling a low cost item at high volume. If the advertising worked for all these businesses they would keep doing it. They don't. They run a few campaigns, advertise for a bit, watch it fail, then leave, and the next sucker takes their place. Unless you're one of those big box stores that advertise every week. But you are not walmart or target. You do not make millions in revenue a day. You cannot afford to run full color catalog ads bundled with newspapers every single week.

Also, don't let flash sales fool you. Back when I sold my large format physical paper calendar on Fab.com (back when it was big, it went bankrupt and reorganized due to... spending too much on advertising and not enough revenue, ironic isn't it) I sold out in less than 1 month. All 300 units sold out at $15 each. When they reorganized I was literally ruined. They no longer took in calendars like mine. I was stuck selling on Amazon.com and Ebay.com and Etsy.com and sold just a few units.

But man was the journey worth it. I lost thousands but I learned enough to justify it.
But this is beside the point. Firstly, I've been doing demos for years, so

1) it is possible, even at high resolutions

2) anything worth doing in opengl can't work in javascript for other reasons (mostly data size). And yes, you could download hundreds of megabytes worth of data files just to show an intro screen and then a few gigabytes for a game over an internet connection. I hope you have patient customers and a huge webhosting budget.

So let's be honest here : for small games, the effort of doing it with OpenGL/WebGL is not worth it. For large games it cannot be done, but for other reasons (that actually also apply to small games: 50 megabytes is incredibly oversized for a webpage, but still rather small for a game, so these problems actually overlap)

I myself feel guilty for stating this, but it actually works better to render the entire game server-side and videostream it to the client. Yes, javascript (and the web ecosystem) is that bad.

Is there no use for it ? Well, I appreciate the speed at which I can try out shaders locally. None of the niceties of javascript such as debugging or any sort of development process work, but it's still nice that you can get up & running in an hour or so.

But any reasonable game on javascript or the web platform ? Doesn't work and at this point it's so far from working it's a bad joke.
I have a 2012 Lexus that actually tells you "place key on start button" if it thinks the key battery is dead.
San Francisco Rail System Hacker Hacked
On my Ford Fusion, it apparently has a passive RFID chip in the key fob in case the battery dies, and the reader is in the bottom of the cup holder. And a hidden key inside the fob, that you can use to pry off a plastic shroud on the door handle to get access to a hidden cylinder lock on the door.
I like the idea of having to type 6 numbers (yes those numbers!) into a computer to release the pressure.
In the asymptotic words of someone else[1]: I don't see why you think it's such a great accomplishment -- all my friends have a Ph.D!

A very relevant read FWIW.

[1] https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/essay.phd.html
no one has produced evidence that the CEO knew about this or allowed it to happen.

He signed his name to the financial reports.
As a Stanford EE PhD grad, I always found the ordering between Stanford Math PhDs and the rest of us to be total, with the possible exception of some CS theorists.

I did find theory CS courses 'easy' as well, but I'm sure you'd consider straightforward some courses such as MATH230X that would be challenging for non-math majors.
3. Can't agree more with that. If math taught me one thing, is that to fully understand something you need to do a huge amount of exercise in the topic.

2. I have seen a lot of very good students in my math bachelor, and none of them took notes. Furthermore, I've seen students taking a lot of notes, even some writing theirs in LaTeX and sharing it to the rest of the class to later flunk the year.

1. I wish I would have done that. But depending on your school, this might be just impossible.
> I need to write things to internalize them.

Have you tried air writing? Or just "doodling" some notes when in a lecture? It worked for me.
Sounds awesome! When I was in school I made a "Game Boy with vector graphics" using an FPGA and a microcontroller. I synthesized a GPU and display driver on the FPGA and sent vector drawing commands from the microcontroller which ran a simple game. It looked like this:

https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC057...
https://github.com/niedzielski/swankmania/blob/master/DSC057...
It would seem more to the point for me to compare something like a game downloaded from steam with a webpage, as that is directly comparing the user experience.

If you artificially limit the scope to something trivial, anything can work. I mean, that might be interesting for web browser developers, sure, and by all means, use it for that. But what matters is what experiences can be created by it.

The web experience for games sucks.