skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Like many myths about Java performance, the erroneous belief that declaring classes or methods as final results in better performance is widely held but rarely examined.

Yes, was about to point this out, one of the more resilient misconceptions about Java. I've lost count of how many times I had to explain this and remove a boatload of unnecessary "final".
This is really sad; Pebble had probably the best products on the smartwatch market, and I'll be disappointed to see them go.

They were the only smartwatch manufacturer that could claim anything close to 10 days of battery life. They were the only smartwatch manufacturer that made devices that were water resistant and really meant it. (That is, they're all rated to 3-5 ATM and tested the same way regular watches are, you can actually use them in chlorinated or salt water, and they didn't try to claim that your "water resistant" device's warranty was void if you got it wet.) They were the only smartwatch manufacturer that made devices that had an always-on display that's actually any good (with the possible exception of the just-released Gear S3; I've yet to see one in person but it sounds like Samsung are getting there). It's a small thing, but they were also the only smartwatch manufacturer that didn't take themselves too seriously, filling their UI with cute icons and animations that made the watch fun to use. All that, and their products were significantly more affordable than some of their competition.
They already do.

All the recent Objective-C features were added to improve the compatibility between both languages, reducing Objective-Cisms in Swift.
While i agree with both the parts. I like to ponder on "high interest credit cards". I believe, hacking in some form is also tinkering with the solved problems with a new approach. The optimal solution might not change but the approach gets refined thus lowering interest rates for something else.
I didn't mean it wasn't relevant to this thread (which gets a pass for being meta), I meant "here" as in "would you submit a story about this on HN".
Yeah, I’ve always figured as much. I use Yahoo’s disposable emails that don’t feature a “+” in them. There’s no way the sender can tell they’re sending to an alias.
Plenty of people on Twitter are pointing out that this is not new money but rather comes out of a fund that was announced in October, also in WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-group-launches-investme...
What happens if you take one, put it in a shock-absorbent coating (bubble wrap?) so it can take a bit of a fall, add a tiny low-res camera and hook it up to a neural network with the goal to maximize distance moved per second... then leave it alone in a room overnight?

Or can it not get up on its own yet?

[edit] If you add a thin piece of string to the top and connect it to the top of the room, I bet you can make a mechanism to set it upright when it falls over. Then it has all the time in the world to learn to land on its feet.
- I use it as my ssh key
- I use it to sign my git commits and tags
- I use it to share credentials with people (e.g. "hey bob, what's the password to the shared XXX account" => pastes to me in IM encrypted to me)
- I use it to encrypt passwords in my password manager
It's interesting sure but I feel like a different method is needed. I think qualitative research would be more valuable at this stage. A large field study would be ideal. Embed researchers with VCs possibly also with startups who try to raise for an interesting overall picture. Obviously not the easiest thing to pull off.
I like the minimalism of the demo charts.

Most charting frameworks tend to have default configurations which demonstrate more features than necessary as an advertisement of their competence for potential users, who are likely to copy default configuration and also take demo charts as cues on what charts should look like. It isn't the only dynamic which causes charts to tend to have superfluous or untuned features but it has some effect.
A Future Without Privacy
https://gist.github.com/tzmartin/977a05f3902c227c98faa5edfac...
"They were the only smartwatch manufacturer that could claim anything close to 10 days of battery life."

My Suunto can go weeks between charges (with GPS not in use). Even with full feature usage, it's supposed to go 200+ hours.
Presenting Mathematical Analysis Using Functional Programming
Successful Startups Average at Least One Pivot
Yes, for precisely the reason that he did not want to be the arbiter of what is released. That's probably why he's still alive. It was a good decision
Rabab1234
58342
Queen Victoria died in 1901 and most of the empire was still part of the empire by then.
I think the bitching is more general : why no 17" laptop, where are the new iMacs, the new minis, the new MacPros ?

I really would like to enter the Apple ecosystem but 1- they're not making the computer I want and 2- prices are just ridiculous.
VC++ /arch:AVX option – unsafe at any speed
I once had a priority list with a few items had a "low" priority, the rest being "high", "very high" and "extremely high". It gave me a depressing feeling because we had to delay stuff that was supposedly "high" priority for someone.
Presumed witchcraft, bad harvests, a year in which half the goats died, something that came to a shaman could probably have been enough.
You can set up landing from a jump as a two-point boundary value problem. It's like orbital rendezvous - there are both position and velocity goals, and more degrees of freedom in the goal than actuators. This is called an under-actuated system. So you have to exert changing forces and torques during the period of control. This is rocket science, which is good, because rocket science has been well-studied.

I used to work on this stuff.[1] Raibert's insight was that balance dominates gait. My insight was that slip control dominates balance. On flat surfaces, slip control isn't a big issue, but on hills, it dominates the problem.

Here's a simple example of a two-point boundary value problem. Suppose you want to accelerate an stationary object so that at time T1 it has velocity V1 and position P1. Your only controllable variable is acceleration, but you can change that over time. No constant acceleration will do this. You're going to need a changing acceleration. For this particular problem, there are closed-form solutions. Look up "shooting method" for how to solve this in general.

An appropriate use of machine learning here would be to correct for small errors. You can calculate an idealized solution from the dynamics, and when you use it on a real robot, it will probably be somewhat off. That's when it's appropriate to use machine learning, or at least hill-climbing, to tweak the tuning parameters until it's on target.

Obligatory Freefall: [2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc5n0iTw-NU
[2] http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2900/fc02895.htm
My grandpa runs on Linux for 3 years. He understands how to open an email and how to send one, how to Google (mainly about cars) and how to send money. That's all he wants to know anyway.

He was scared about downloading viruses and all that, to which I told him: you don't need to worry about it.

He's also on a mac sometimes, I wouldn't let
The Golden Age of Spaghetti Code
It's all about the user experience. The old AOT-only system made system updates take ages, during which time the phone was unusable.

This new app update system is slower and more CPU intensive, but doesn't affect the UX because it only happens when the phone is idle and charging - the perfect time to do something CPU intensive.
Same here for photo management - there is still no perfect solution so far. What did you end up using ? I am using a combination of Rapid Photo Downloader + Shotwell - not great, but it kind of works.
exactly! MVP FTW!
This is great, I'd be 100% behind this.
How+to+Do+Your+Own+Body+Wrap+At+Home
Custom network (tcp) stack in Go
The problem is DRM - it has nothing to do with Linux.
Well there is no reason the trucks couldn't, it would just affect the overall efficiency (the amount of solar power in to the amount of electricity out).
Return to Sender
Well, sort of, but not really. My mom's best friend was really jealous of mom because her computer actually worked. The friend was running WinXP, experiencing all the typical problems. So my mom didn't feel like an outsider, more like she had the luxury situation.

A couple of years later Iphones and Android appeared, and as I'm an Android user she picked one of those (to simplify potential support situations) and was very happy about her decision. (Because she liked the phone, not that she was getting support from me all the time.)

I'm sure some of her friends have Iphones, but that's never really come up as a thing. Maybe because the people my mom associate with aren't 8 years old with the need to flaunt their stuff in the face of everybody claiming "look my phone is so cool, woop woop, your phone sucks because you have a different brand!". ;-)
It seems "scorched earth" can have two closely related definitions:

"A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that targets anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. [...] The practice can be carried out by the military in enemy territory, or in its own home territory."

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

Still though, the "Aggression" paragraph seems to imply that researchers believe that war was not common in these societies.
Rats, fleas, bubonic plague
Should Linux Mint Be Discontinued? – InfoWorld
I would add a "I don't know" option. Family members who need tech support from me are generally unable to answer things like:

> Is your device up to date?

First, they aren't familiar with what is considered a "device". Does it mean the calendar app on the phone (where they see observed problems)? Surely it can't mean their iPad, because that's an iPad and not a "device". The "device" must be the charger thingy. What does "updated" mean? The clock and date are correct, is that what it means? The SIM card is just a week old, so that means device is updated, right? Or they updated their calendar app, so then all is good. Or maybe "device" refers to the internet box at home? If they correctly identify it as "probably not updated", the next instruction is equally opaque:

> Update it.

This needs a "how?" answer, in addition to "okay".
China has eclipsed US in AI, robotics and VC funding
Spoiler: yes.
So it is ok to generalize based on 0 cases that Linux will be too hard for older less tech-savvy people, but it is not ok to generalize based on 1-many successful cases that for some people it might work?

I agree that Linux might not be great for our parents. As for my own mother, I moved her to a Mac mini years ago and that has reduced my support time solely to explaining how specific websites work. She can do lots of things on her own now, like debugging the wifi (shitty telco router), she creates her own booklets for the classes she teaches, etc.

With windows she'd be stuck on non-task related issues 80% of the time, which made it impossible for her to learn how to use the computer at all.
This was prehistoric. How much knowledge did they actually have of diseases and their causes?

You'll still contract smallpox from your neighbour regardless of whether you burnt your village down or not.
Actually nuclear power can be used to make breeder reactors, which uses the neutron flux from a critical reactor to create more fuel, in theory giving them a lifetime that is at least as long as the supply of heavy elements holds out, but if you want to be seriously pedantic then Solar isn't exactly renewable since the Sun has a limited amount of hydrogen to burn and once it runs out it will be very hard on our planet, catastrophically so by all estimations.
What do you think makes it better? It's not unusual to see non-technical users of all ages using an iPad. You never see them using a chromebook.
I highly recommend the full book. Robert Greene is killer at providing examples, proving his points then boiling down those examples into action you can take. The persuasive force of hearing the patterns of mastery in the lives of people we all admire, and seeing the variations on the theme that can apply to our own lives, is lost in a summary.

Also the audiobook is excellently read, if you're into that sort of thing.
They might debate in public and make a deal in private, you may never know.
تور کیش ۲۱ آذر ۹۵
Mass scanning the internet (http and https) using a raw tcpstack
I worked for a large e-commerce store. We implemented pop-up email newsletter opt in and saw 4x growth in our mailing list. Pop-ups work, they suck from UX perspective but work nevertheless.
> What a joke really.

I think you are the one making a joke rather. The overall Linux experience (when you choose the right hardware and when everything works as expected) is not bad, really. It's faster than a machine running on any other system, USB peripherals do not need tons of external drivers, you can choose the Windows Manager you prefer out of a dozen of them available, it has proper package management, user management with different levels of privileges, it does not need to reboot for every update like windows does, I could go on forever.

At best you can criticize some Linux distros for being unfamiliar for Windows or OSX users, but that's about it. The rest depends a lot more on what you do with it. If whoever uses it lives mostly in a browser, it makes basically no difference.
Users below the upper quartile (if we can model computer competence along a single axis) are coping just fine with a range of OSes on mobile devices including tablets - Android, iOS. People are getting used to working out slightly unfamiliar interfaces.
Most commonly, people coming to me for help make a blanket statement like "X is broken", where X could be their phone, computer, an application or website, the Internet as a whole. X is also generally inaccurate.

For instance, if the browser icon on my parents computer is moved for whatever reason, they will say that "the Internet is broken". If my mother can't figure out what button to press in a mobile application to get what she wants, "her phone is broken".
I retract; you aren't deflecting the issue, you have no idea what the issue is.
That's one reason I bought stock android phones for my parents even if they don't care about stock android or not.
It's easier to tell them which setting to navigate to or what to tap looking at my phone since I too have a stock android phone.
Sure, but running file-by-file is how bsdiff was designed to operate. (I wrote it for FreeBSD Update, which operates on a file-by-file basis, because I was paranoid about the problem I'd seen on Windows systems where an update was registered as "installed" but the system had not in fact been properly updated.)
Memory Modules in vector space reminds me of some earlier work described as Associative Memory Modules (AMMs) http://sumve.com/biomimetic-cognition/biomimetic-api.html
This smells. I've seen plenty of the first part, fix it quick, but rarely any of the latter, fix it properly later. And the former stacks up rapidly as weeks turns to months turns to years.
In what languages do names like y combinator or amazon web services or sublime text mean "something bad"?
Is my system up to date? Yes I'm running the latest vanilla kernel and latest atheros firmware and my wifi connectivity still sucks.
This is great for games like Hearthstone that currently requires a re-download of the whole app which takes 2 GB whenever there's an update.
it is better out of the box. Go ahead and disconnect from the internet your computers, and do a simple A/B testing between Windows and a Linux distro and see how many can recognize your USB devices without installing anything. Linux wins hands down.
Well sure. It's always been a question of things in the intersection, with politics as well.

(While you're here I'll remind you about turning off flagging on some overly-politicised stories that were being flagkilled earlier this year - if you're worried about HN becoming overly political then that sent the opposite message)
I am working on a side project called Metriculator (https://www.metriculator.com).

This is my personal experiment to see if I can build and market a full-fledged SaaS tool. It has also been a nice way to pick up a new programming language (Elixir).

I have a lot of unfinished projects. I start working on a new idea, build out some functionality and then the interest fizzles outs and the project is left unfinished.

This time, I decided to take a different approach - I decided to keep publishing the app incrementally. I started off with just a landing page first, last week I added the demo survey. There are a LOT of things left to be done before I can roll out public access to this project, but getting a few beta users has been a nice inspiration to keep me going.
How long does it usually take to do such restructuring? Also, are you able to do this with minimal downtime? I have similar usecase, however, the export and re-import usually takes quite a long time.
I don't really understand this bit. Are packages stored on Android devices compressed? If not, why are they recompressing data?
Amazon Go redefines grocery shopping
Hacker News really needs to add 1) blockquotes and 2) lists.

If it had these, most abuses of monospace preformatted text would disappear.
Apple was a part of the NSA's prism program.
You need to be proactive, contact first, offer your services, explain how you can help with their tasks, cold emails, etc...

Do not get into trap of freelancing sites such as oDesk, toptal, .... they are the middle-man, you should eliminate the middle-man. Always contact potential clients directly.
3 Data Science Methods and 10 Algorithms for Big Data Experts
My Note 4 came with kitkat installed two years ago. Shortly thereafter I was able to upgrade to lollipop. For the past several months now I've been ignoring the available upgrade to marshmallow because honestly neither my cell provider nor Google has any incentive to let me keep a perfectly good phone for another year or two, so I'm worried a major performance hit is the only real feature I can expect from the new version. I know I'm being slightly irrational in this concern, but can anyone confirm that the jump from Android 5 to 6 doesn't cripple phones with "old" specs (since it's targeted to the latest phones)? I'd love to update if it turns out this is not the case.
Maybe this needs a separate thread but for a long time now, there have only really been 5 (or 6 depending on who you ask) upstream distros, Debian, Fedora/RH, Gentoo, Opensuse, Slackware, Ubuntu.

I get the reason for offshoot distros to exist but I can't help thinking that a lot of the time it would just make more sense to publish a script to add packages/modify the default configuration, rather than Just-Another-New-And-Soon-To-Be-Discontinued Distro, it would probably be easier to maintain in the long run.
Critical Capabilities for Effective Content Marketing
That's a default install of WordPress
25 U.K B2B Startups to Watch in 2017
I took a look at his wiki to see if this information (extra lens used) was mentioned. There is a section on Parts Selection [1] which mentions a discussion about the Pi Camera and Lens [2] but that only sends me to a blank page.

Maybe he will update it with more information in the future.

[1] https://github.com/jphfilm/rpi-film-capture/wiki/Parts-Selec...

[2] https://github.com/jphfilm/rpi-film-capture/wiki/Camera-and-...
I moved three relatives who's computing skill vary between "What is a file, again? Help me, my Internet is gone?!!" and "How do I use this scanner to get that document into a PDF file and send it via Thunderbird?" over to Xubuntu (Ubuntu with XFCE, 14.04). They all dutifully do the upgrades and it's very rare that I have to intervene.
Gödel was a platonist.
https://design.canonical.com/2010/11/usability-testing-of-un...

Canonical actually spent money on user interface testing. I can find some activity for Gnome shell but I'm having problems digging up any solid testing for KDE.
Interesting how what "common sense" is evolved since the days of symbolic AI (cf. Cyc). The history presented begins rather late; show some love to the founders of the field...
Man I seriously sympathise with you. Allow me to extend my warmest congratulations and an invitation to join the 'shitty brain cooties trifecta' club. Unless you are someone who experiences greater confidence when taking amphetamines (not I), it's so bloody hard to treat these three conditions simultaneously!

Want to get out of bed in the morning? Sure thing, but good luck concentrating on anything when combining SSRIs with ADHD brain. Don't want to break out in a cold sweat at the prospect of being called on in a work meeting? No problemo, I hope you enjoy discovering the hidden depression sub-basement, and you thought you were already at the bottom of the pit.

Then there's all the crazy drug-drug interactions with CPY2D6 inhibiting anti-depressants and whatever else you might be on. I gets better if it's something like prozac or paroxetine, as both are simultaneously substrates and inhibitors of that enzyme (i.e. they inhibit their own metabolism so have non-linear DRCs... ah wacky fun).

But don't worry, you don't actually need drugs! All you need are positive thoughts filled with hopes and dreams, you filthy junkie.

/rant

On a more serious note, the only sustainable pharmacological treatments I can think of are:

- Dexamphetamine & beta-blockers (better chances if your anxiety is closer to a 'panic' disorder). This worked pretty well for me, until my local government health authority decided I couldn't be trusted with 'dangerous' drugs like dex. Far better to cast me back into the pit than to fuel our local ice epidemic, since clearly smoking meth is 'pretty much the same thing' as taking dex under medical supervision.

- Monotherapy with a non-reverse-able MAOI (e.g. Parnate, Nardil). Although good luck finding a psych willing to prescribe one, even if you can demonstrate you understand the interaction risks and know how to mitigate them.
> They all dutifully do the upgrades and it's very rare that I have to intervene.

If you don't want to even worry about that, include a sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade as a cron job and everything will be up to date without them doing anything.
Show HN: Kantu – Picture-driven web automation, web testing and web scraping
I think the language of technical debt can actually be very meaningful to business. It's fair to take on debt in the short term to make initial gains, but you need to have a reasonable perspective about the ongoing cost that debt has, and pay it off on an ongoing basis if you can't afford the debt service.

If it's a decade-old application that rarely even gets bug fixes, it's probably not worth doing major refactorings. On the other hand, if it's your core product, and your team is regularly making updates and fixes, it would be irresponsible to not incorporate your team's latest standards.

Also, it's worth investing in test automation, because the balance really shifts if you can minimize the cost of regression testing by automating it.
Catchy title, but the blog post uses weird metrics and formulas that don't seem to make any sense. There are a lot of buzz words, given metrics and then multiplied together to make not-a-facts.
In 4000 BC?
My Nexus 6P went into a boot loop on Monday and I got an RMA issued. UPS emailed me the return shipping label last night and when I went to print it this morning I couldn't because my Epson WorkForce 845 was in a boot loop.
Irish "travellers", related to Romany gypsies, still burned the caravan of someone who died, at least up to 25 years ago (when I was a kid living close to a halting site). Maybe someone should ask them why they do that.
Will the other slides be posted? And how about videos?