skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm going to politely disagree with this article. It's overly optimistic and draws largely from anecdotal preferences and insights.

I believe that VR will fail for the same reasons blockchain has failed to reach critical mass, there's just no overwhelming pain it solves, it's nice to have but great majority of people still do not appreciate having a bright screen inches away from your eyes and the hardware while it will certainly get better, may be addressing immersion the wrong way.

A truly game breaking VR device is one that would not require strapping screen to your face, we will see what's out there on the market but it's still very much too early to say whether it's going to have the legs it needs to reach critical mass.

I could be totally wrong and we might end up staring into empty spaces on the Skytrain with people manipulating VR objects with wild hand movements. Sort of the same shift in how smartphones have made people hunched over a small screen or talking to the air with earphones with microphones.

I believe agumented reality is a much more subtle and gradual adoption where it won't require a powerful device but with gentle gestures or possibly even reading your mind's will to issue commands without having to deal with a touch screen. The Google glass is great but I think the killer app would be something you can install on your prescription glasses that projects layered UI and makes it "smart". We would be living in a self organized surveillance state where it's no longer necessary for a government to keep track of everything but peer based apps that shames socially negative behavior and the fear of such reprisals will be at a far far higher level than we have today.

We are living in a time where every new critical mass technology (ex. facebook) are essentially "cigarettes", widely accepted and normalized but not fully understanding it's consequences.
So, off the top of my head, largely inspired by the Vox article on how to eliminate the wage gap [0]:

- Have strong sexual harassment policies and aggressively enforce them.

- Require employees to keep up-to-date documentation on everything they work on so somebody else can jump in and take over their stuff in an absence.

- Nobody should ever work more than 8 hours in a day. Even voluntary overtime should be strictly banned (if it's not banned, then people who work overtime voluntarily will look better on performance reviews than people who can only put in 8 hours).

- If there's truly an emergency situation where someone has to be called in, those emergencies should be exceedingly rare, should only happen when there is an existential threat to the company, and accompanied by a massive bonus and/or extra vacation days ("hey, I know it's Saturday, but the servers are on fire, and we'll get sued if they're not back up ASAP, so if you come in and fix them now we'll give you the next week off"). If anything actually needs 24/7 attention on the regular, then hire people to work in shifts instead of calling people in on their days off.

- Flexible hours. As long as an employee works ~8 hours a day, it doesn't matter what those 8 hours are. They don't even have to be contiguous. If you want to work 11:00-14:00, go home for a few hours, and then come back and work 19:00-22:00, you should be able to do that.

- Absences should only count against PTO if you take off at least four hours in a day. If you have to leave two hours early for your kid's doctor's appointment, it won't count against you. (this is actually policy at my employer, and it works very well)

- Allow people to work from home whenever they want. Imagine you're a parent, and your kid is stuck at home sick and needs you to stay home and keep an eye on them: you won't have to eat a vacation day to keep an eye on your kid.

- Avoid any other hallmarks of brogrammer culture I can't think of right now.

Basically you want to create an environment where women, especially mothers, would kill to work at.

[0] http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap-explain...
I'm not sure what the purpose of a suit like this is. They're already shutting down and pledged to issue refunds. Are they trying to collect fines or slap someone on the wrist? It feels like this would have been more effective if they started investigating 6 months or so after the pledged ship date.
does the virus have to be injected too, or does it pass the blood-brain barrier?
Great! It doesn't work (, and the original study (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7027/abs/nature03...) never said it did.

Parabiosis seems to work because you're basically using the young mouse as a breathing dialysis unit for the older mouse, not because there's any secret sauce in their blood per se.
For the casual gamer it may not be interesting, though that depends on the learning curve - eg regular sports can be pretty challenging and physically exhausting, yet people play them casually.

But in particular competitive gaming and esports would get a lot more interesting this way.
Man, I should live forever then. I love hot peppers. Well, OK, I usually use bottled pepper sauces of various sorts, not whole, fresh peppers themselves. So maybe that doesn't work. But if it's just the capsaicin, then I get plenty of it... jalapeno pepper, cayenne pepper, chipotle pepper, scotch bonnet pepper, habanero pepper, ghost pepper (naga jolokia), trinidad scorpion pepper, carolina reaper peppers... I love 'em all.

Thanks HN, now you have me wanting to cook a big pot of chili that I can pepper up to ludicrous levels of hotness.
That's not even true.
Best summary I've seen. There are two significant facts here that surprised me:
1. The double checkmark has security implications. How would a typical user know that?
2. Even if you are completely vigilant, follow best practices, etc, Whatsapp messages can be intercepted. They claim this is a "wontfix" UX choice. I'm skeptical why the non-default feature cannot even provide the protection that almost everyone assumed it would.
And that's why we have 2FA on separate devices or even hardware tokens. They allow some security even if the computer isn't trusted, like protection against replay attacks at a minimum.
You can probably still get the one that'll install on your device(s), but if there's customization for e.g. carrier X in country Y (or app slimming) you're unlikely to know or be able to find it from the infinite "download APKs free now!" sites.

And the last time I looked, all the apk-downloaders required your device ID, because Google's API does (for customization reasons) - it's much more of a "you can do this if you emulate a device" than "you can download it". I'm also not sure if the ID works unless you have gplay installed, which you may not have if you're being careful/paranoid enough about security to manually validate apps.
Am I missing something on the 502 page? I don't see the same parallax effect. I'm just getting a static unicorn.
> no way to demonstrate (or even provide evidence of) the absence of any vulnerabilities

I'd say that's hard for open source software to do as well.
This is so awesome. High quality, in-depth, and very on-point. I love whoever went to all the trouble to make this. Awesome content!
I agree. When I submit a commit for Racket, the branch is tested in Travis and AppVeyor. That catches a lot of error.

Anyway, Racket has an additional internal CI called DrDr and some very subtle errors are only detected there, after the commit is merged.
Genuinely curious but what are your thoughts on VR porn being a thing? Recall that porn on the internet has really been one of the first to start accepting credit cards. The old adage "internet is for porn" rings true.
Thanks for a nice explanation. But I still can't see the functional difference between

> "the attacker gets to impersonate me" and "the attacker can pretend to be anyone to me" (KCI)

Both seem similarly catastrophic to me in a real life scenario. I cannot imagine a scenario when one is OK and one isn't. I don't see the hierarchy.

Also, thanks a lot for mentioning GCM-SIV to me! I like GCM, but the nonce reuse is scary :)
Me too. Those trusses don't look like they were designed for that kind of lateral force.

I'd be interested to hear a civil engineer's take.
Is it typical for clinical trials to charge participants thousands of dollars? For something as simple as an IV transfusion?

It seems like the clinical trial is just an excuse to get around medical regulations, so they can sell snake oil to gullible rich people.
If your goal is to get the greatest number of people onto the greatest and most secure, private, free software, then pure ideology won't help.

What do you think Iran/the NSA/any TLA is more upset about, WhatsApp using the Signal protocol, or Matrix and Riot?
Also it would be possible to put in subtle backdoors, which would be hard to see when it's disassembled and could even allow plausible deniability.
> Performance of a tiny code sample is not why people select one language over another.

It's not how people should choose a language, but I'd wager it plays a non-trivial part even if only from laziness alone.

We have to remember we aren't marketing to perfect* developers but more to the average if an aim is mass adoption.

*Perfect as in follows general programming best practices. Following best practices is not always best. Not trying to make a value judgment here.
I expect lightweight, ergonomic VR or AR to replace desktop monitors in a few years. which means desks may no longer be needed. time to short IKEA - oh wait they re not listed.
My perception is that the Green party went from lunatic fringe to "why aren't they in the official debates" in three election cycles.
I look forward to the inevitable study that finds an association between spicy foods and heart disease, or colon cancer, or spontaneous brain tumors, or Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, and recommends reducing intake of aforementioned spicy foods for all humans aged 10-75.
But.. but.. it's in PloS One! :)
For non-front-end developers, it's an important and useful tool, because it lets us build things without having to know CSS. But none of the experienced front-end developers I've ever worked with will use it, and most of them wince slightly when its name is mentioned.
It's not just the degree or experience requirement, it's the exclusivity factor. These aren't "typical" BS/BA holders. That's just a bare minimum and only one component of the requirement. Other pieces include a shortage (or even non-existence) of labor available for the job. This necessarily implies the target candidate has skills that aren't in supply domestically, and therefore is (more) "highly skilled" even than a Bachelor holder is.
Hardware Synths: Jacks in the Box
That looks pretty cool!

Too bad about the language barrier, but I'm guessing more languages (such as spanish or english) are in the roadmap somewhere.
This is what I suspect. There's pretty clear evidence that most American's don't eat nearly enough roughage. Peppers count as roughage, and are often paired with other healthy/fresh items.

Similar correlations have been found with avocados. Avocados aren't particularly healthy when compared to other fruits and vegetables (not to say that they're unhealthy), however eating avocados correlates with better overall dietary quality.

Generally if you're buying more expensive fresh vegetables, you're probably eating that in place of unhealthy processed foods.

Indigestible dietary fiber also helps regulate "fullness." Seeing as the stomach is filled with largely indigestible fiber, instead of high-calorie digestible carbohydrates, it takes far fewer calories to feel full. The work the digestive system has to do in order to break down the roughage also helps mitigate blood glucose levels, by preventing rapid spikes.

If one were to eat just carbs, their readily digestible nature allows the energy to immediately be absorbed. However, the pairing with vegetables slows down the absorption of the carbs, by forcing the digestive system to work on the vegetables in addition to the carbs.

Now this isn't to say carbohydrates are bad, but they shouldn't make up the majority of ones dietary volume.
Because they started lower, apparently.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/19/skyro...

> A new analysis from the Urban Institute found that the average unsubsidized premiums in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, commonly known as Obamacare, are actually 10 percent lower than the full premiums in the average employer plan nationally in 2016.
That was one of the arguments for the ACA. Hospital emergency rooms are a very expensive way to treat minor problems, and an very ineffective way to treat chronic ones. This is why each homeless person in SF costs the medical system about $10K a year.

Prior to 1986, hospitals were not required to treat the uninsured, but most nonprofit hospitals did anyway.[1] For-profit hospitals tried to dump them on nonprofit and charity institutions. The 1986 law makes all hospitals that take any Federal funding treat uninsured people with emergency conditions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_an...
Reproducible builds will fix that, soon.
Getting beaten up in the acquisition – need your help
Hello guys,

we really need your help here - we don't have access to the expertise we need, those folks simply ain't around here and the time is ticking:

- We were approached by a very decent company who got interested in some pretty smart people inside our team (small startup, product making decent revenue, good ideas to expand the product lines)
- I know good meetings and bad meetings - when we presented the tech and the team and ideas to the very senior tech staff of the acquirer -> it was a really really good meeting... 5/5

From there it went downwards (again, we are techies, not smart M&A guys): the M&A team started approaching us individually, did not talk to the team as a whole, told everybody a different story from "we just want you, we don't need the IP, lets just bilaterally agree on a signing bonus and what you think the company is worth" to "we need the entire technology and IP and need to perform an extensive DD on the tech".

Right now, they position it as "let us interview everybody individually and then pay some extra money for the startup".

To me that sounds like "let us try to screw you over, by offering individual signing bonuses, thus getting your reservation price revealed and pay peanuts for the tech because we will force you to sell the shares in the company through the employment contracts". Is this normal behavior or am I paranoid? I mean, it is perfectly possible they really just want the team (but again, they really need the entire team) - but then they kind a insist on the technology as well and are very pushy on the DD...

How do we find out their real intentions? Is it just a hiring or do they actually also want the IP and simply try to screw us? We don’t need to sell.

Guys, help.

Is that normal behavior from their M&A team?
Thanks!

Jan
Just a reminder, folks: this is one anecdote (or two, if you count the Steeves one he included).

How'd you feel if your city was summed up thus with buckets of tar and a great big brush?
FSAs are also risky for employers, though, because you can get your entire FSA balance on Jan 1, use it Jan 2, and resign Jan 3. They can't make you pay it back.
I think question isn't whether or not mining bitcoins would be productive. I think that was just by way of illustrating a hypothetical question about whether Tesla would notice or care about unusual patterns of energy use.
Thanks for that, sounds promising. Will keep an eye out (haha) for somewhere offering demos and give it a whirl.
http://i.imgur.com/XTcIRNu.png example
"weren't so many regulations and taboos in science, this trial would be run a research institution"

Alternatively, maybe the idea pitched to research institutions was knocked back as unethical or showed little scientific merit?
Citadel Pays $22M Settlement for Frontrunning Its Clients
Obama just gave a riveting farewell speech about the US commitment to democracy. So it's not surprising that people who bought into his words are feeling burned, despite his actions being totally different for 8 years. Even ignoring the record=setting surveillance, whistle-blower persecution, and covert wars thing, he signed more executive orders than any president in history.

Therefore he's exploited the unilateral powers given to the executive branch more than any other president in history. So even if Trump does even half it won't seem so bad.

The best part is that he's handed plenty of fuel to any Russian who wants to dismiss their own governments abuse of power by pointing to the US. And they do this at every turn. So despite his tough talk on Russia, Obama has done more to make it easier for Putin to do whatever he wants than anyone.

The problem with a 'good' seeming guy going to such extreme lengths of power is that it legitimizes the bad ones who do it. So the problems should not only be analyzed locally but also considering externalities.

This is why ideological consistency is critical. If you're going to be abusive at least be honest about it. Fortunately we won't have this problem with Trump, he can't help it even when he tries.
My favorite speculation: eating more chili peppers is associated with reduced sensitivity to pain in general, which leads to lower stress, lower inflammation, and greater physical activity (greater tolerance of muscle soreness and injury risk). There's way more variation in pain sensitivity than most people realize.

Seriously, though, I would expect that the biggest correlation is to ethnic/regional cuisine (particularly southwestern US and Mexican), which I'm not convinced moves the "healthy lifestyle" needle in any particular direction.
It's too slow :(.

Are you generating all the points of view before showing it? Can you show a work in progress view of the intermediate steps?
That seems to be a low payout. If the ltv is say $600 your affiliate program pays out just over 1% of that. How do you get away with that?
Maybe I'm just lazy, but VR games requiring physical exertion have absolutely zero appeal to me. I want to sit back with a keyboard and controller and relax. I include any kind of room scale in that assessment, and personally, just the idea of wearing a thing on your face and having to crane your neck around to see what's going on sounds like a PITA.

I honestly and truly don't understand why people think VR is going to get any kind of mass market penetration.
>My car only has a tape deck and a radio... it didn't have anything else..

When I was a kid, my parents' station wagon had an 8-track deck in the dash. We had a converter that plugged into it that would let us play our cassettes.
This isn't a vulnerability in the signal protocol. More a vulnerability in a particular UX decision that WhatsApp made (consciously, even.)
> selling abandoned property you found ? no thats not a crime.

Is that true? I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure you have to own something in order to sell it legally... and I don't think you get to claim ownership of every "abandoned" item you "find".
“Just let some joy smoke sift into your system”
In Australia, Medicare is 1-1.5% of your income tax.

On the assumption you're making ... $100K a year, this is 20% of your income.

Hard to imagine how it could be done less efficiently. Of course, the issue is then going to be "Say we reduce costs to even 5% of income", "think of the physicians/hospitals/etc"...
> Can someone explain the benefits of a US-style healthcare system vs nationalised tax funded healthcare?

None.

> I see from threads like this is a lot of Americans bickering over their own healthcare, and as an outsider I don't really know how how it works, and why everyone is so invested in how it works now.

Because actual change is near impossible these days. (Ultimately this is largely a result of flaws in our electoral system. Most notably, gerrymandering gives Republicans a near permanent lock on the House.)

> What happens if you don't have insurance?

You die.

> To me any system where you make sick people pay more than rich people seems bonkers no?

Republican congressmen are bonkers and/or evil.

> If most people's employers already pay it on their behalf, isn't it a business tax already?

That's a large part of the problem. It got tied to employment in during WWII when the government mandated salary caps for some industries so firms competed on benefits. I think almost everyone agrees this is bad but it's impossible to change because of gridlock.
>just trusts that "I heard WhatsApp is secure, so I'm good to go", then so much is sacrificed that there wasn't any point in the exercise to begin with. Except that real solid systems, with direct user control over key continuity, and fully open-source, are undermined by the confusion with these "lay person" super-convenient closed-source systems.

I totally disagree with this.

Security isn't some absolute thing, which you either have or don't have.
It's a series of threats, and counters, and usability tradeoffs you have to make so people still use your service.

You can always criticise someone selling a front-door lock - "what if the bad guy smashes the window"? But that doesn't mean front door locks are bad, or that we should all move into houses without windows.

I think tech folk treating security as a binary all-or-nothing thing, without thinking about the usability tradeoffs, are a big part of the problem, and why so much of what we have is so insecure. We have these "real solid systems, with direct user control over key continuity, and fully open-source" you mention which almost no one uses.

This makes them useless. Complaining that people should know better is also useless. Shipping software which dramatically increases security against a wide range of threats, on the other hand, because 1B people actually use it, is a positive contribution. Trying to blame that same software for the lack of adoption of "real solid systems" is lame. We've had the solid systems for years, but their lack of usability always sunk them.

Does WhatsApp encryption handle every threat? Of course not. There are always going to be unhandled threats. People could still come to your house and root your phone, or hit you with a wrench until you unlock it, for example.

But there's an apparently big threat (revealed in the Snowden leaks) of governments clandestinely, passively, mass-monitoring traffic on the wire, perhaps without the cooperation of the tech companies involved, which has compromised the privacy of vast numbers of entirely innocent people. WhatsApp's encryption seems to counter this.

Moxie et al's contribution thus deserves respect, in so far as it potentially protects a billion people from that class of threat.

It's possible that, due to the closed source nature of WhatsApp, they are actually snarfing everything. That would be big news, deserving of a mass outcry, or a leak. I'm hoping the potential commercial ramifications of them getting caught widely releasing a deliberately compromised client keeps them honest.

Its a risk, but security is always about risks and tradeoffs, not absolutes; and they have built a system that's actually usable enough that it has 1B users.
Yes. Check out the pharmacy benefit management industry. That's a multi-billion dollar industry which does something that should be entirely unnecessary. Drug companies overcharge for prescription drugs, then pharmacy benefit management companies make bulk deals to negotiate them down while taking a cut.
Nice this is how CI should be done.
I've no M&A expertise nor do I have an MBA but I do know at least one friend from college who has been doing M&A for years now and I'll pass this on to him. But what I would say is that your gut is probably right. I would set some ground rules: they talk to the team as a whole or not. Have everyone sign NDAs and non competes so they can't poach one member and then copy your product.
This sounds like a set-up for a horror movie.