skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What do you guys think is the point of all our activities if people eventually die?

Most mainstream Judaeo-Christian postulates the immortality of the soul. But it seems to come up against mainstream history and science.

Hasn't anyone here felt these existential questions? Even if you accomplish so much, in the end you can't even answer basic questions about the meaning of it all. You can consile yourself with the idea that this is all there is. But it seems like when you go, it goes back to how it was before you were born. All this knowledge you've accumulated and even more, your continued day-to-day consciousness, it seems this world exists only because you do.

It just seems like such a waste if this was all there was. And consciousness is really amazing, it is at the root of it all.

This isn't exactly depression but an awareness that while the world might go on, you will not always be around to experience it. And everything you do will eventually fade away.

Against that cosmic backdrop, one can conclude that doing something is pretty much like not doing it. That fun party you went to at 17, that sex you had at 28, what trace has it left? So why do the same job day after day? Only because you love it.
My question is why? It cost me $100+ to buy $1000 worth of bitcoins. 10+% transaction fee with limited places accepting it and must charge a higher price than fiat to make up for the high transaction fees.
yeah it's not the type of depression David Foster Wallace wrote about
1966 Telecaster pickup torn down and rewound
I agree. I think they are mainly saying to go looking for something to care about. Creation worked for them but it wasn't the actual answer. It is a search for purpose. When you find a purpose, you can focus your energies there for the positive emotional feedback we all so crave.
I don't get the connection. Google's cloud doesn't suffer from more or less lock-in opportunities than AWS for example. Messaging is just a mess. The cloud platform market is quite a different thing.
I was extremely pessimistic about the removed escape key but it hasn't been as bad as I envisioned. With that said I would probably rather want a physical one.
Flow is cool, but TypeScript has way more traction. Would jump on this in an instant if it had TypeScript support and a VS Code plugin.
Back in 2005-2006 we ran into significant issues with the GC and pinned memory related to Windows sockets when building a networked server for XMPP. I believe the GC has improved since then for that scenario, but it was a big surprise when it happened. It was a classic case of a leaky abstraction.

http://blog.jdconley.com/2006/06/how-to-build-scalable-net-s...
I agree, nobody wanted to ditch Flash either in 2010 (1), the reactions then were the same as all the crap you read about Macbooks now. 6 years later, and everyone realises they need to get rid of Flash.
I think it's the price you pay for innovation, many people can't handle (the) change.

(1) http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/
Well, there's not a whole lot of factual difference between "Big Thing Could Happen" and "Big Thing Probably Won't Happen", and I know which one I'd lead with if I was an editor. I don't think there's anything in the article which I'd disagree with on a scientific level.
> US is pushing so hard for an economic war / proxy war / shooting war with Russia is pretty complex and out of scope for this response.

Brand new account - check.

Pushing 'Evil US vs Innocent Russia' agenda - check.

Using Syria as a pretext to whitewash Russian war crimes - check.

Welcome, tovaristch.
The Not-So-Fine Tuning of the Universe
When you are depressed seek HELP. Help from people qualified to provide it first. None of the internet advice, friends, family etc. are alternative to this HELP.
Lots of great people leaving Apple right now, not a good sign.
People take calculated risks when logging, but the logging industry has intensive safety requirements. There's a difference between accepting a heavily mitigated risk and exchanging money for your certain demise. This is a slippery slope argument; in a technical but real sense we accept mortal risk whenever we leave the house.

Do you think parents should be allowed to sell both kidneys in exchange for, say, fully-funded college tuition for their kids?

Do you think the mentally ill should be able to sell both their kidneys? Why or why not?
Are those bullet holes to the right of the door? This looks like something straight out of a video game.

Note to Wired: "Enlarge Photo" doesn't mean what you apparently think it means.
I don't have a hardware issue, it's just very easy to brush the touchbar and set off a button when you didn't intentionally press it. If you overshoot one of the keys on the top row slightly you can end up pressing one of the touchbar buttons.

Maybe they should have come up with a way of requiring a press to active buttons on the touchbar.
Probably not recording - just reading volume from a microphone and transmitting a "level". That's more plausible because it is simpler to code, requires less upstream bandwidth, and tallies with their "We can't record" statement.

Of course it would be easy to build something like this yourself, if you fancied a challenge. A mic-input, an ESP8266 chip, and you've got yourself an instructibles-project!
A curious fact: why the 1970s Musicmaster Bass had such a thin sound
This article (which is now in the original story) says otherwise - https://electrek.co/2017/01/09/tesla-feedback-loop-elon-musk...
Imagine some drunk guy hops into his car in bad weather. He taps the auto-cruise button and then passes out. Snow, rain, construction, - something - hinders the ride somewhere along the way home. Car cannot process the issue correctly, and slows to a stop, alerting the driver. Driver, being sound asleep, cannot hear the annoying alert tone. Alert continues, and possibly after some time, alerts authorities of it's disabled status.

I'll bet that in the near future (next decade or so), there will be rising incidents of traffic being blocked due to a stopped automated car who's driver is not responsive, but the computer couldn't handle some construction or weather, and went into fail-safe mode, simply slowing down and stopping (but not pulling over due to lack of space).

Heck, we're halfway there with people checking FB on their phones at stoplights, so anticipating this seems reasonable. We haven't solved that problem, and I don't think we'll solve the one you raise (not for a much longer time, at least). Valid problem, but a solution is likely far off.
> And I'm sure someone will post a link to a story about police doing exactly that.

I'm pretty sure it's been done, yes (though I don't have a case that I can cite). What's more interesting to me, though, is that it's not done all the time.

Why isn't it? I suspect because the courts take a dim view of this kind of stunt (again, I don't have a case to cite). But in the current climate, if this would pass muster with the courts, wouldn't the police do it frequently? Frequently enough that we'd hear about it somewhat regularly?
Please don't be fooled into believing the government had some altruistic motivator to do this. This is simply politicians and government agencies buying political capital by hurting morally-offensive sections of society which they keep illegal so they can have more sway over their real target: the moral majority.

The only reason to keep prostitution illegal (and pornography legal) is the moral argument that actually having sex is a sin (and "not classy") whereas just looking at sex is more of a minor inconvenience morally. By shutting down businesses like these they get the support (monetary and politically) of the moral majority. Business as usual.
"the person walked in and started eating from a customer's plate"

Wow. I assume that there was a physical confrontation, and that's why all parties had to leave? How does SFPD react when a diner BTHO of a homeless guy who starts stealing food from him while he's...seated in a restaurant??
To Improve Your Sense of Direction, Lose the Technology
Actually, ideas often comes up when you do not seek them, during sleep, while driving, while meditate (although meditation is meant to help us managing our brains and thoughts), etc...

I tend to create into my calendar all these spaces to allow me to think about new ideas and to always have a pen or an iPhone to note everything I think about!

Individuals and Groups create value, make sure you create your value from your side.
Islamic State attack victims' families sue Twitter
You are correct. I thought that Conf was an acquisition of a very basic wiki product that Atlassian built into a enterprise content collaboration suite but I was remembering incorrectly. The story was that Confluence's main development line was maintained by contractors instead of in-house developers and after launch dev was pulled in. My mistake.
Small business can't always just write a check to solve their problems. My buddy just charged the standard state tax for instance, when selling books online, then at tax time he figured out how much he'd undercharged in taxes and paid it himself. Done that way its definitely a 'small business tax'.
There are days I can't even leave my bedroom.
In terms of improving safety, I think most people are looking at it backwards. Instead of having the computer drive and expecting the human to take control in dangerous situations we should have the human drive and allow the computer to take control temporarily when it detects a high probability of an imminent collision. This could prevent most collisions and is technically easier to accomplish.

In fact some vehicles already have front crash prevention systems and stability control systems that automatically brake and cut the throttle (2 control axes).

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/automation-and-crash-avoid...

So manufacturers could build upon that baseline by adding more sensor inputs and control axes for collision avoidance. Instead of just braking when a large obstacle appears in front the vehicle could steer around obstacles, exert force on the steering wheel to prevent running off the road, limit throttle inputs when approaching curves, etc. Some aircraft autopilots already have similar functionality by automatically climbing to avoid terrain.
Let's start speculating what he might do instead. I have a hunch that this might pursue some Bret Victor-esque product maybe something like Swift Playgrounds for the iPad but less educational and more dev oriented. But I'm basing that on relatively nothing.
that's a bit of a hyperbole isn't it? the obvious counterexample is tim sweeney, who arguably has the more successful game engine and also video games.

there are undoubtedly many game programmers and programmers in general that are completely unknown to the public and maybe even their peers that would be in the running for being "the best".

carmack seems to enjoy his status, which feeds it even more. he is no doubt good, but his cult following may cloud how good he is a bit.

also, who wants to rewrite code they've already written? there's plenty of incentive to want to take code you've already written. nobody likes solving the same problems twice.
Good for him. He saw another opportunity he wanted to pursue, went for it, makes a smooth transition, communicates about it. 10/10
it must be crazy living in a place where you might bump into a leopard - yikes
How to Prevent Gun Deaths? Where Experts and the Public Agree
Why do people feel so entitled? Don't like the ads on forbes? Pay them or don't visit them at all.
Could you provide some support to that statement? Since much of drug dealing went online, there has been several articles on how that activity become more safer when moved out of the street.

Just a few months ago I also read an article here in Sweden where a journalist reached out to sex workers, where the person that agreed on a interview said that they had no pimp. They did all the booking and reservations Online. While anecdotal, its enough to at least question statements like sex workers aren't safer when they can stay out of the street and do their advertisement and booking from home.
I am not a geneticist, so perhaps I misunderstand, but the conclusion I formed seems to be reinforced by the quotes from the authors in the article. That is, there are specific gene expressions which are relevant in a medical context affected by cultural factors that are genetically transmitted. Genetic transmission at least to me implies that a person receives these things from their parents at birth, regardless of their own specific upbringing, because of cultural factors of their parents upbringing, and so on. As in, cultural differences can be expressed over time as genetic differences.

“These data suggest that the interplay between race and ethnicity as social constructs and genetic ancestry as a biological construct is more complex than we had realized,” said Noah Zaitlen, PhD, a UCSF assistant professor of medicine and co-senior author on the new study. “In a medical context both elements may provide valuable information.”

Setting aside the fact that this is such a touchy issue that the authors are carefully couching their language, it looks like there may be ways in which this new information can help people by tailoring medical treatments. I'd love a ELI5 explanation of this if I'm somehow misunderstanding, but the conclusion I formed seems to be supported by the article to my reading of it.

Note, I'm not taking a hardline stance. That's why I said "race is not just a social construct" in my conclusion.
How Flashbackr Got 500+ Early Adopters with a Few Reddit Posts
Such advocacy groups already exist. They provide basic healthcare services, needle exchange, free condoms, food and emergency shelter.

I'm not sure if your comment is serious, but groups already exist to address the specific needs of sex workers (which aren't that different from the subset of people they come from: impoverished and drug addicted).

What is not happening, the most important part, is for the law to view sex workers as victims rather than perps. Protection of the law would go a long way in reducing the violence and trafficking involved.
>If it is not quite so easy, the other options become relatively more desirable.

So by your own logic, prostitution is more desirable to those who choose it than the alternatives? So you want to make it artificially less desirable so they choose a different (worse) option?
This article has… too many puns.

> A report by the Bonger Instituut, a criminology think-tank named after a professor at the University of Amsterdam, is blunt

> But as fewer coffeeshops are expected to cater to ever larger groups of stoners, that approach could leave them out of joint.
I really only ever hear the term from the tech press. Those folks might have 5 phones and 3 laptops sitting on their desk at any given time, so the term "daily driver" makes sense to describe the one they actually use. For the rest of us, we just have "a laptop" and "a phone."
Biological populations certainly do exist, it's just that they don't correlate well with prevailing concepts of "race". The average western African is more similar to the average European than to the average southern African.
>I immediately gravitate towards the keyword descriptive dotCOM. It instantly exudes trust & authority

Strongly disagree. As a result of this type of thinking, I find that the majority of "keyword descriptive dotCOM" domains are usually click-bait or shady content marketing.

Sites like "VacuumReviews.com" are almost always full of content focused on SEO not quality, and questionable financial motivations.

But I guess if the general public still likes those types of domains it shouldnt affect their value.
To pick a nit, technically this article demonstrates race is a social construct, but social constructs affect gene expression.
Yes, and they way they do that is by obscuring the performance and hoping you'll assume processor speed is still advancing as quickly as it did in the 90s and early 2000s.
Parrot is laying off a third of its drone division
I've encountered some newer systems running FreeDOS, which includes controllers, HMIs and along with some vendor-provided USB boot tools. In time these will become legacy systems.

In new deployments these non-PLC industrial systems are some combination of CE, XP, or very rarely 7. Linux is starting to gain traction with some Rockwell touch panels, but your typical vendor is loathe to try anything new.

If software innovation were left to the industrial vendors, we'd still be on parchment and punch cards.
> Risking the loss Is where my gut says people will fight this.

I imagine there will be a fight, but it will be completed a lot quicker than people anticipate. For seniors and disabled people unable to safely operate a motor vehicle, the benefits of self-driving vehicles are huge. Those people care about their freedom as well, and they're well represented.
Not if the function is not random. A random seed for a fixed known function only gives you a few bits of randomness.
This random seed is easily detectable from inside, and harder to detect from outside via ordering exposure and timings.
This is not a random function.

Double hashing with random seeds would qualify as universal hashing though.
> ZeniMax also declined to invest in Oculus in an early financing round and was unwilling to accept anything short of “a large non-dilutable stake” in Oculus in return for allowing Carmack’s participation as a technical adviser, according to Carmack’s filing

If there was an issue with proprietary information wouldn't they have objected that the financing stage?
If my understanding of the universe is correct, he's going to join a really high paying start-up gig working on a "revolutionary" new email app that's basically slightly cooler than what we already have now, and then Apple will acquire them in 3 years, and he'll get a big payout, and then retire, which means start his own start up making a revolutionary new iOS app for teaching kids to code.
Why do a startup, if someone else or a group may eventually do it better?

You can outsource all the work and spending money to others lol. This is also true of "effective altruism".

Why be so egocentric as to want to try to change the world? It is going to change anyway.

Take these questions seriously, I would like to hear some answers. I think it is to leave some mark because of our desire to exercise power and control over our environment. For men, it is an instinct to leave a trace that is independent of our biological lifespan. (Most women have an instinct to have children.) The desire to get really rich from helping many people. And finally, the desire to do something you like and have it be meaningful.
Dear downvoters, please comment to let me know what I should improve. Thanks, falsedan
Why do you think sex workers ever had pimps?
Not as long as their are federal grants to get their hands on.
Not that dangerous as it sounds in the US. In the UK, there are dangers for family life in mixed citizenship families, after brexit was decided.
English follows other languages into dark alleys, beats them senseless, then rifles through their pockets for loose vocabulary.

The various irregular forms and tenses of the existential verb, "to be", is etymologically stitched together from at least three distinct languages.

Remnants of foreign languages certainly are welcome, though they certainly get rough treatment in comparison to their language of origin. The majority of the whole corpus is "foreign", and a significant fraction of the 1000 most commonly used "core words" are from a different branch of the linguistic tree as the official branch for English.

This is, in large part, due to the Saxon and Norman invasions.

Pseudo-Greco-Latin words are associated with higher education, because for a long time, Latin was required for higher education at English-speaking universities. Thanks to the fact that such words can be composited from a variety of common Greek and Latin roots, it remains the etymological origin of choice for newly-coined words describing new scientific knowledge. English, of course, tosses their grammar onto the tire fire, and chops up the vocabulary like a butcher disassembles a side of beef.

Length is likely just a side effect of the etymological origins.
Centroid are defined by the data points that constitute them. You could only manipulate them by moving people's physical location.
>Oh boo hoo. First of all, your customers need infrastructure and if they choose to fund it from taxes that they pay that's their business.

It's their business how they tax entities that are actually located within their borders. It's not their business to tax entities that are located outside those borders, even in other states, and merely ship into the locality. If the locality doesn't like that, they're free to ban shipping and the USPS, but I don't think the Federal government will take too kindly to that.
painted Yellow flowers.
Well, IIUC, he didn't go out of his way. He was asked by the customer to recover deleted files, so he stumbled where otherwise he would not have looked at all.

Which makes me wonder why he was paid at all.

Normal people don't need an offer of money to call the cops when they come across CP.
One less intermediary for the interaction. That's my understanding of the thought on the subject. The pimp has less economic and coercive power if a girl can make her own appointments. If a girl feels she needs protection it's a lot easier to hire someone to watch outside while she goes and does her work, but that is a very different position than that of the traditional pimp.

I find the argument convincing. Unsurprisingly there's not a ton of research on the subject, at least none that comes up on quick searches other than the usual stuff about violence vs sex workers decreasing with legalization.
This is rubbish.

I am (was) a serial domain buyer. Now, I guess its somewhat true that buying a domain to go with your idea can really inspire you, I have a lot of domains I let expire or still hold on to because I haven't yet or never did anything with them. I don't think its a good idea.
This. I decided at a young age that the answer to "can I search" is "no". If I end up in custody as a result, so be it. If they get a warrant and slap me with everything they can, so be it. I cannot take the chance that they will either plant something or find something that I use regularly that might be used illegally and leave me fighting about it for the next few years.

I once built model rocket engines with my son (see sugar rockets online). I kept legal amounts of the mixed chemical as well as the individual components for that in my trunk at various times (going to a launch site, coming home from the hardware store, etc).

In a case like that it's not the officers job to decide if you did anything wrong or not. It's their job to report that you had "bomb making supplies" or some "white powder substance" in your trunk and let the court system sort it out.
I have. Two of my peers are planning their exit strategy. I get it, anecdotal etc. But when this many people are speaking out, there are thousands who aren't who feel the same way. Apple should be concerned IMO.
The Economist is up to turning Dutch economy hotter. Nice PR piece.
I think we will soon be in a situation where self driving cars are better than humans for 10% of driving scenarios(highway, gridlock commute, some parking, ...) but nearly useless in others.
I think the acceptance for half decent AI will be much lower than it is for poor human drivers, and the hardest parts of autonomous driving is still a very long way out.

That's probably fine though, if the automation can reliably discover when the environment changes. Especially since perhaps a majority of the time spent driving is in the very few "easy" scenarios.

Human drivers are probably happy to drive 10% of the commute time for the next 2-4 decades.

What this means however is that the dream of completely autonomous Ubers and transport trucks is probably much further out than some might hope.