skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> In terms of accuracy, you'd walk away from 2016 far less confused about the world reading Breitbart than the NYT.

No, you'd walk away much more angry about all kinds of things, including Hillary's satanic rituals and pizza parlour pedophile ring, but still be very confused.

Baring one thing. Who your next president is. And who says that's not due to a lot of very confused people?
Find an article about Kosovo. It's never referred to as a renegade province. They will simply state that Serbia doesn't recognise its independence. The position that is at odds with the facts on the ground is never given credibility.
Scientists Can Now Sequence DNA with a Smartphone
Facebook Actually Bought Oculus for $3B (Not $2B)
"They did it that way because they knew stuff I don't know".

Or "They did what they did because they were the first one's to do it, and it only looks whack in hindsight"

Or "They did what they did because they were living within totally different constraints - like having to support old crap browsers like ie9, or a 'lowest common denominator' of slow end-user PCs etc., or some old chipset on the firmware code they wrote, or some old language paradigm, old libraries etc."
The CIA Just Dumped 12M Declassified Documents Online
> The vast majority of humans can not be trained to be computer programmers.

I disagree with the general sentiment. What makes humans different is that we can become skilled.

Imagine the big slave population that was used to build the pyramids in ancient Egypt. Suddenly, modern construction machinery appears over there, making them "unemployed" (slaves had a cost too). I would bet only a very very small part of those slaves couldn't be trained to do something more skilled than pushing rocks around.

Unskilled labor, as in repetitive, boring work where little creativity, reasoning, or dexterity is involved, is an infliction humans have to endure, for the moment. It's a waste of our real ability.
Patreon seems to be serving at least a subset of that need.
As I see it, Blockchain technology is based on some premises that are not easily achievable. This are the two I find most relevant:

1. A large user base (computational power) is needed to successfully run a blockchain backed product. If the network is small, a malicious attacker with enough resources could manipulate past transactions or prevent new ones (51% attack).

2. Blockchain was designed to be a trustless (no central authority) distributed ledger. In the case of Bitcoin, it prevents double spending of a virtual currency that only exists in the Internet. When applied to "real world" assets, sooner or later you will find a step in the process that involves trusting something or someone.

So far I haven't been able to identify a use case for anything but a digital asset with great traction.
Switched to Ubuntu. :-)
That's a very well known experiment, and well explained on the one TED talk I've seen it cited. The experiment conclusion is that thinking about money as a reward¹ makes people much less creative.

It's simply amazing how somebody can spin this into "money doesn't motivate people". Some people will only see what they want, and make any excuse for that, no matter how absurd.

1 - Does thinking about it as a problem have the same effect? Is there some data about this?
Git is fundamentally different from a blockchain. In git, you trust the upstream repo to maintain the integrity of the data.
There's real momentum behind a lot of things, including C and FORTRAN. That doesn't mean your next project is necessarily going to be written in either C or FORTRAN.

The crop of JavaScript derivatives are probably not going to disappear, but riddle me this: while there are many variations on JavaScript's syntax, why do other languages that are arguably JavaScript competitors, like Ruby and Python, not have the same wide selection of alternate syntaxes and sugar packets? Could it have something to do with the usability of the default dialect?

I personally think it's a bad sign when so many people feel they need to write a transpiler to add some syntactic and behavioral enhancements. The language should provide a functional, livable set by default, at least good enough that writing a transpiler doesn't sound like the time-effective solution.

I don't understand ASM.js very well but it sounds like it's a new type of bytecode that allows programs written in many different languages to be executed in the browsers' JavaScript VM. If this truly bring us first-class support for non-JavaScripts (which won't be real until browser vendors either ship or make it transparent and automatic to install additional DOM bindings), I will be so happy. I will also be curious to see if it has any impact on the popular use of JavaScript itself -- the node buzz already kind of seems to be fizzling out and moving onto things like Go, so maybe we won't have to wait too long.
Plenty of stories around it, but none of them seem to be gaining widespread adoption.

The Brave browser is trying to integrate micropayments into the browser. It blocks ads by default and pays websites directly out of a monthly amount that the user configures.

https://brave.com/publishers.html

Flattr tries to do a very similar thing even earlier, except you have to click the "Flattr" button on websites that you visit that you want to fund. But still works with the same model where you set yourself a monthly budget and the system pays content producers directly for you.

https://flattr.com/
How developers will work in 2017
Agreed that taking the low-paying position was a mistake if pay was a priority. Disagree that expecting a raise at the time he was verbally promised a raise was his mistake.
> Except history has never had to content with automation and AI

It's taken me awhile to wrap my head around this. I think I'm starting to understand the fundamental difference.

In the past technology revolutionized processes. E.g. Replace horse with trains and cars. But, the human skills were never touched--they all required a driver.

Whereas today, technology is reaching the point of replacing human skills. E.g. autonomous cars. So, this time as you say it is different because it is the human skills that are being revolutionized by technology.
> how many users

Everybody who exchange somehow sensitive info in Slack from their laptops and phones? Because these devices can be stolen.

OTOH such people should use a full-disk encryption on laptops anyway. With phones, it's a bit more tricky, especially if an external SD card is used, but solutions still exist, AFAIK.
One of those days you really love HN :) This looks amazing
So ISTM what you want is a log of all underlying documents along with some machine-readable format for these documents so you can aggregate them into a cap table.

Using a blockchain for the log would work, but so would any other means of checkpointing the thing periodically and verifying that the audit log is really append-only.

IMO the real benefit of a blockchain is that an owner of some interest in a company could plausibly validate that their interest is actually logged in the source data for the cap table. But this would depend on having some way for the owner to know the current blockchain head, and this isn't going to happen by magic.
> but that was in an age where every citizen didn't have an internet connected phone with a camera in their pocket

If you want 10 shallow disconnected sources of information from the fringes then that works.

If you want someone who knows where to go, who to talk to, and how to actually build out a story then you still need journalists.
I was a desirable customer because I was paying for their most expensive offering (delivery of the print paper, as opposed to just digital access).

And I'm baffled by the rest of your response... What sort of effort am I supposed to put into solving their logistics problem?? Other than repeatedly telling their customer service people about the issue, how or why would I investigate any further?

(Honestly I would have loved to get in touch with the actual delivery company in my area to ask them if they have the wrong address or can't find the house or something... but this is one of the many ways in which the customer service reps could not help me because they either didn't know or wouldn't tell me who the delivery company was!)

I think perhaps you misunderstood what I wrote or think I'm actually a delivery person?
Nasa finally shares stunning footage of its 2005 landing on Saturn's moon, Titan
I've seen this talk before, and he makes a ton of assertions mostly backed by often-repeated cliches rather than data (e.g. participation trophies). This is a really good talk I've seen posted in response to this very video before, so I'll post it again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HFwok9SlQQ
I actually prefer the mixture. It's a better visional cue.
Very interesting, but the source of the data is so suspect that it'd be hard to have confidence in anything gleaned from it. It would be like CNN putting out a fake news package.
>Horses are tools that people used. When there's no more use for the tool, it's usage may be reduces. People are not just tools, they are the reason we have an economy in the first place. A solution in some form will have to be put forth if one doesn't emerge.<

I'm unsatisfied with the ubiquitous horse analogy as well. The economy exists to solve human problems, not horse problems. We are constantly generating new problems and new social performances. It would not surprise me if the economy of the future was based around elaborate, manpower-intensive tea-ceremony-like rituals or something equally preposterous. Human obsolescence is not inevitable, but might be engineered.
I've been there a few times, and the worst thing is when every five or ten WTFs there's something that seems as ill thought as the previous couple similar blocks, except this time it actually makes sense, as it implements (awkwardly of course) some important corner case.
Well put. Not to mention the disconnect between market rate ("the average of salaries for similar positions in Market X") and individual rate ("the amount you can get in Market X given your skills and experience").

Fundamentally, you are worth whatever someone will pay you. If you can negotiate an offer for 20% over market rate, congrats, that's your personal market value. Conversely, if you're currently paid 20% under market value and can't find another job, the same applies.
Blockchain evangelists promise the world and deliver nothing except hype and political grandstanding in return.

When we discuss the cryptocurrency concept, specifically bitcoin, I think reasonable people can agree that blockchain technology has yielded something unique, interesting and worthy of technical merit, despite it not living up to the insane prognostications of bitcoin fanatics . On the whole, I think it's fair to call bitcoin a success because it continues to exist and has been self sustaining more or less within the parameters of the original design for quite a few years. Although it is small, there is some real commerce that occurs in the bitcoin world, and even among some of the alt-coins that followed it. A self-sustaining mini-economy based on computer code is fascinating, and without all the breathless evangelists talking about how bitcoin will end all wars and liberate the masses from the tyranny of taxation and government, I think we'd see a lot more meaningful technical discussion of bitcoin and the other potential uses for blockchain technology.

But that is not the world we live in. We live in a world where every conceivable problem is met with an overwrought and unworkable blockchain solution. We live in a world where startups can drain 100 million dollars on a clearly stupid idea because "blockchains are the future", we live in a world where bitcoin evangelists refuse to face the reality that the incumbent financial system is not at all threatened by bitcoin and concepts like "smart contracts" and that people with common sense aren't ignorant or misunderstanding blockchains just because they're trying to tell you that throwing millions of dollars into a "decentralized autonomous organization" (a misnomer which exemplifies blockchain insanity) is a dangerous and terrible idea.

Blockchain enthusiasts need to put up or shut up. Storing land deeds and stocks on the blockchain is unworkable. Using the blockchain to power smart-locks and self-driving cars and autonomous drones and autonmous AI VCs is unworkable and unnecessary. Bitcoin, bitcoin copycats, and RNG roulette are the only examples of blockchains working mostly as intended and providing at least a marginal utility (in that cryptocurrency can be converted into spendable money). All the rest of it is demonstrably pointless (see literally every project created with etherum besides decentralized gambling software).

This is leaving aside all the political nonsense and all the bitcoin hesits, thefts, scams, and buzzword swindling. The bottom line is that people are tired of hearing about the amazing capabilities of blockchains when nobody can seem to actually demonstrate their utility (besides bitcoin) in practice.
They've rolled out touch screen grocery checkout... Pretty much everywhere over the last decade. My local QFC used to employ a dozen cashiers - now, they employ 4.

What jobs have been created by this automation? This certainly didn't create 8 (times the # of stores) jobs for software engineers - otherwise, this wouldn't have been profitable for QFC.

Does anyone seriously think that those 8 people went on to do work that paid better, or was more valuable then putting groceries into plastic bags? If so, why haven't they done that before they were put out of work by a machine? Do engineers not see a connection between this, and the fact that they get to step over human excrement on their way to work?
Large stationary gravity wave in the atmosphere of Venus
really? I read that post as "writing a ToDo app using the blockchain as your datastore versus a traditional database is bad". Well yeah, there are different tools for each job. If everything is a nail and you're only used to a hammer, then of course trying to use this new tool as a hammer will sound silly.

I obviously can't predict the future use cases, but an example off the top of my head might be something like a country issuing social security numbers at birth using the blockchain. Suddenly that "expensive" operation can be seen as extremely cheap given the utility. Go ahead and attack the example, but like I said, just something off the top of my head.
Oh! Sorry. I suppose this is what Inkscape for Mac is using; that makes sense.

Does it support hi-DPI yet?
It's a lot harder to monetize free->paid if you don't even know who your free users are. Requiring the creation of a Nylas ID for the free tier addresses this. Your ecommerce example doesn't fit the situation here; the ecommerce business wants the order $$ at the expense of the account, and their UX reflects that.
Did they build those hand tools by hand? Honest question.
programming languages and
formal logics are ultimately
instances of the same general
idea.

That's deeply questionable. The CH-correspondence breaks down as soon as you your computation includes non-termination, concurrency, timing, distribution etc. Classical logic doesn't really have wholly convincing CH-correspondences either.

It seems to me that constructive proofs are a special class of programs, and fall under the purview of programming language, but not the other way around.
I actually really like it.

There's a lot of bikeshedding over terms in this field (especially in web development!), so calling something a framework vs a library vs a tool vs a package vs whatever else will eventually cause comment threads about it to be bogged down in debates on how it's not a "real framework" or that it's too big to be a tool, etc...

Calling it a "toolbelt" is a perfect word to me, and I really like it. To me it reads like a collection of "things" which can all be used together for some purpose.
IIRC, my old 486SX at 25 MHz didn't use a heatsink.
A smart news reader built for productivity, powered by integrations
What do you mean all news is fake to so degree? That just sounds like Thiel's contrarianism or just an attempt at being provocative, or is it some sort epistemological claim?
How do I completely-self-study Computer Science?
Yes but if you have the intestinal fortitude to check out of those pissing contests you can really create your own life. That is, if you are lucky enough to be at level to start.

I did note that many of my peers where COMPLETELY freaked out by my decision that I mentioned above. My choice to step back from the game freaked them out. No over aggression but a mix of outright confusion as well as somewhat confused jealousy.
Yes. The switch between different pairs if you're not using just parentheses is a real cognitive load.
But the point is, that in the true sense you don't really get any paid holidays.

If your employer considers you worth $120K, then with 2 months of holidays, he will simply pay you $100K spread over 12 months.

In other words, paid or unpaid doesn't mean anything (other than a lack of option to those who don't want these vacations) as long as the employer and employee are free to negotiate the salary.
If I recall correctly, over the course of the program some 300-400 people wrote code for the AGC, so it's not surprising that not everybody gets mentioned. Don Eyles (who saved Apollo 14) has an MIT org chart from the time of Apollo 11 on his website: http://www.doneyles.com/LM/ORG/index.html
That only includes people at MIT that worked on it -- there were also many at Raytheon, AC Electronics, and various other contractors (like Adams Associates) that we don't know the names of.

The code that kept Apollo 11 going was Hal Laning's, and he's mentioned a lot in the article.
I'm not so sure about that.

I think there are plenty of manual jobs that I don't think will be done by robots any time soon. Plumbers, electricians - just don't see it happening.

Digital or easily digitised jobs on the other hand - lawyers, accountants, possibly certain type of programming jobs - will be automated
I'm curious about your experience selling patents. Are you an attorney or the founder of a startup?

It is very rare to hear of anyone who successfully sold an IP portfolio, and I'm guessing you were either the inventor, or the overall price was quite high for you to get such a large amount for selling them.

Do you assist people to sell their IP today?
I'm curious about your experience selling patents. Are you an attorney or the founder of a startup?

It is very rare to hear of anyone who successfully sold an IP portfolio, and I'm guessing you were either the inventor, or the overall price was quite high for you to get such s large amount for selling them.

Do you assist people to sell their IP today?
I think you're falling into the hole of thinking the web interface is the business. I don't shop at Amazon because I like their website, I do it because Prime allows me reliable free 2-day shipping, because camelcamelcamel provides an accurate price history, because I believe in the customer service, and because I can usually find what I'm looking for.

Now they opened a warehouse nearby I can order something in the morning and have it in the afternoon.

Amazon is a logistics company with a web frontend, that frontend isn't nearly the most important part of their business. Their recommendations are awful, their site is clunky and difficult (try to, say, price compare the per-battery price on CR123A batteries for a frustrating afternoon) and doesn't do classes or categories well at all.

The point I'm trying to make is they've got a lot going for them that isn't their website and most of that is why they're popular.
2 disgraced journalists from 13 years ago is hardly indicative of a problem with the NYT now.
Large structure found on Venus
Exactly! I switched careers by doing nothing more than studying in my local library, and then applying for jobs once I felt I was ready to interview.
Serious question: Do you read Breitbart, do you know this to be true? I mean, I think it's fairly safe to assume it's a bit of a rag, but wondering if that actually goes beyond the typical conservative "slant" and well into knowingly presenting fake news as fact as you seem to be saying.
An addendum from the UX side: bitcoin is not usable by anyone who hasn't spent a lot of time learning about it. It basically requires users to understand what the blockchain is and the limitations of it, whereas other currencies don't require regular users to understand the backend machinery. It can't ever be more than a niche tool, because the general public isn't interested in learning backend machinery for currency.
For everybody starting to use indexedDB I recommend to take a look at Dexie.js (http://dexie.org/) for a minimalistic wrapper which might save you from a lot of pain as working directly with indexedDB is no fun imho.
You’ll Never Be the Same Again (US Digital Service)
If the binary you are using is signed, and the signature is well-known via a side channel, you can at least make sure you're running the same binary.

If the binary was built from a known source, and the build is reproducible, you can even be sure that the binary really represent the code in question; bugging a compiler so that it injects a malicious payload and keeps a crypto signature the same is a bit hard. (But the whole "trusting trust" chain applies.)
I make low 6 figures doing network security. If I hit 200k, literally the only thing you could do to motivate me would be to treat me well and give me interesting things to do.

Fortunately, my employer already does both of those. I just wish it wasn't almost a requirement to leave in order to get a decent raise.

Note: I'm not expecting to make $200k in a technical role as a security analyst any time soon, its just hypothetical.
HIPAA compliance issues makes this an issue.

Also their trove of data is not a one shot. They might collect data a mountain of data on Leukemia but publish one study on Leukemia's correlation with high power lines. Publishing this paper wouldn't necessitate opening up all of their data from either a horizontal or vertical perspective.
Refund
This game did nothing but suck me in . didn't mind 200 to get things going but then everything changed. Every week new equipment or cores. Then came all the upgrades for your kingdom and character and it still hasn't stopped. Started playing this game 9 no ago. I can't even play anymore unless thousands spent in addition to thousands already there. Spent last 4 months with a shield up that's all I can do. Totally unfair rip off game that I want a refund from. They can have my account cause it's worthless all I am able to do is shield every month. Unfair and wrong. Please inform on how the game can be refunded if u know how. Thank you
> You can't compete with something with perfect agency that never gets sick. Now, are there going to be new categories of work and new economies?

Follow your own logic to its conclusion. If AI does that then what are the new jobs? We are eliminating entire job categories. While the new jobs will be in entirely different categories (e.g. manual labor will be all but eliminated, and the new jobs will be in creative industries). There is very little cross over between those job categories so we are heading to a future with a significant portion of the population jobless.