skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It would take a huge amount of time, effort and money to reinstall and reconfigure, say, 80% of all computers in a country that happen to be running Windows 7 or newer. To recover all the data from backups (assuming the backup servers weren't running Windows as well). To replace any literally bricked hardware.

Meanwhile, many very critical systems that happen to be implemented on Windows would shut down for weeks or months. Look at the current ransomware attack on the NHS. Now imagine taking down all health services, ISP services, maybe electricity or gas or water companies, supermarkets, distribution and shipping management, police and government records...

Yes, these things usually have non-Windows components on big iron or Linux servers. But if you take out all the Windows clients, and however many Windows servers do exist, then the system as a whole cannot function.

This could be a part of a (cyber)war effort. Instead of, or before, sending in the army to attack, you cripple the enemy's economy and civil infrastructure. You even have a chance of maintaining plausible deniability if you attack the MS update distribution channel, or serve them a sufficiently secret order that doesn't get leaked.
Well I guess it depends on what you store. I am backing up 1.5 terabyte of photos and videos which can't be compressed or dedup that much so in this case it would be more expensive that many other solutions.
Alexa Calling doesn’t allow any numbers in the phone’s contacts to be blocked
The main issue is that they don't have enough customers but they still pull out as many people as they can to work for almost free
While I am also appalled by the QZ headline, I would also note that the HackerNews headline makes it abundantly clear that this is just a pre-trial motion, and yet that was enough to get me to look at the thread.
Probably because some windows xp boxes can't connect to https servers running TLS 1.2 so the patches are available under http as well.
I hate dinglequeries too.

I wish more people would learn what can and can't be removed from a URL before sharing it. It's not that difficult, and it's easy to test that the "minified" version still works.
Any insight on how this is going with Solaris? The boot environment feature seems like it should ease the uncertainty of patching a bit.
How exactly would jigsaw project achieved this?
Maybe, but I doubt the next major war will involve tens of millions of soldiers occupying and then rebuilding a country, ala WWII.
Sounds like the Foodora people have their act together so if a scooter was a winning strategy they would be doing that. Maybe city driving regulations are a problem? A bike with an electric boost could be good though.
I'm a FOSS supporter, but do you think FOSS systems are always updated on time? Or that distributions released in 2001 are still updated? Or that companies running critical systems on old FOSS systems always go through the pain of updating?

Just because the update is free, doesn't mean there's no risk associated with it.
Best Commercial Ever
While these attacks are not impossible on linux/bsd there are inherent weaknesses in design of Windows, Especially Windows XP/2003 that make these attacks more probable

Also due to the nature of Linux being a Monolithic Kernel and open source, there tends to be less issue with backward compatibility issues with Linux making it easier to update systems that today companies refuse to update windows on because it is not compatible with older hardware/software

Infact Linux often has the reverse problem in that hardware support for new technology often lags behind because hardware vendors focus on Windows first.
> The only option is to buy a whole new kit which is a stupid waste of money.

...and running unsecured operating systems is what?

Let's say your front doors stopped locking one day. Is it a waste of money to solve the problem, even if that meant replacing the entire door?
Automated Ethics
SOX had great intentions but was one of the most poorly implemented regulations ever.

SOX was a law passed in a hurry after a big scandal. It's intention was to allow politicians to be seen to be doing something. The more painful that something is in practice, then the more they are seen to have done something.

SOX as implemented is therefore working just as intended. The trouble is that the intentions were bad in the first place.
I only see the $9.99 pricing. Is the $7.50 the small business discount they're talking about?
Yep, my impression was that Foodora was vastly more respectful of their riders, even though they certainly did push them physically (which is only fair enough I guess).

Uber deserves the bad rep they are getting.

Great write up by the journalist; I'm jealous of all the riding KMs. :)
>>A patch for the vulnerability exploited here had been available for months.

Not for XP/2003. That patch was not generally available months ago
Are you looking for an amazing Ludo game development company?
building either of those leads to violent ends.
That was a dumb move by the malware coder ;)

Wouldn't you want to hide a kill switch?
I believe education is currently undergoing a similar transition that music and film and been through. At the end of Education will be cheaper. It already is a lot cheaper in some cases.

Health care is tougher, due to stricter regulations (rightly so) and reluctance from doctors but I think the transformation there is about to begin. Look at what is happening with (open source) prosthetics.

Prime reason for rent and mortgage that I can see is wealth generation and in a society where wealth is less important perhaps these will also decrease. You can see more and more interest in open source, not just in software but also other fields, is this a shift away from wealth accumulation?

From another angle, people are beginning build homes with recycled plastic and by 3D printing this hopefully will reduce build cost. And hopefully that will filter down to the end consumer.
Ahh yes the magic cloud, solving all security problems

Move to the Cloud and never have to worry about security again /s
In reality, a huge number of modern IV drip machines plug into the wall for power and get their network connectivity via 802.11. This is to allow remote configuration and status monitoring.
No issue as long as the updates are properly signed. Distributing updates via HTTP/FTP is normal in Linux land.
Airbus A380 – $6.1B in additional costs due to project delays
This is a bit above my pay grade so forgive me if I'm way off target but...

To some extent doesn't this make a case for (say) HTML# and browser based apps? That is the browser is a known sandbox of sorts. It's interface with the device (e.g., Phone app) is a known, and fixed. It has no care about what's on the other side of that wall. And the device OS more or less exists to run and support the browser.

But when the applications interface directly with the device, and there are countless device and OS, etc. combos there will always be a mess. Too many variables. Too many chefs in the kitchen if you will.

I realize I probably oversimplified. (Sorry.) I'm also outside my knowledge sweet spot, but am curious enough to want to learn. Please don't hurt me. Thank you.
So, the problem was to support/buy such equipment/software in the first place, which only runs on proprietary software (Windows). Isn't it pretty clear that at some point, the support will end and you end up with such problems. If it would run on Linux, you could at least use a newer Linux and it still should work (although maybe with problems). Another better solution would be if the controller software itself was open, then you could maintain it yourself and port it over to newer platforms. Don't support the manufacturers which give you only closed software. If you do, then that was your choice, and you should accept that it will become useless at some point, and you will end up with such problems.
When I was studying organic chemistry we'd use funnels as filters all the time. I suppose most people wouldn't know about that though.
I think this is proof that Trump should be impeached.
> I don't think it's irrelevant because certain foundations predispose one to certain lines of arguments.

Regardless, bringing personal history into it is bad reasoning and unnecessarily divisive at best. And at times it brings out the worst in people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
Software engineer here. I've been working on meaningless and emotionally unrewarding project for the last 2 years.
Running burnout self-tests this morning yielded me the second most critical level, but still worthy of "act immediately" or "seek medical attention". I feel pretty down and my dayjob is meaningless to me.

I'm considering taking a sick leave till the end of my contract next month, and am wondering this:

If burnout is caused by lack of emotional reward and lack of giving a f*ck, should i pick up a sideproject I've committed to that i kind of care about instead, and think is interesting? Or ditch that as well and just take rest/go travel? Can i still work while recovering? What's a good workload?
Sad, they should be paying them well, Uber is such a mess
This is an interesting comparison between the two services in Sweden. I wonder how much variance we would see in the states with the "tipping culture". 4 deliveries per hour with an average tip of $2 is $8/hr by itself, exceeding the hourly "wage" paid by Uber Eats.

Sometimes I daydream about being a bike courier/messenger in a city like New York. I've even considered delivering sandwiches over the lunch hour in my current city, Denver. The author's descriptive of cycling in the rain tempered my dream a bit.
TLDR Uber pays 4.4$ per hour, local competitor 17.9$

remind me again, why we need this shady company in Europe?
Adding to that, it's completely marvelous to cycle in here. Even when riding amongst cars it always feels like you are just one of the vehicles and others respect your position in the traffic.

And there are almost no hills...
> So we just use these stand alone Win 95/98 computers instead.

I mean, an airgapped Windows 95/98 is still reasonably safe I would have thought, if it stays exactly the same and no USB skullduggery etc.
I know people that still run OpenSuSE 11.2 on their internal systems. No amount of "open source" will have customers modify what they see as a working system, especially not when any upgrade comes with a week of integration followed by tests and bugfixes to ensure flawless operation in production. The difference between OpenSource and Proprietary is in this case that Windows XP exists and works well enough while GNU/Hurd doesn't and therefore will never have an outdated version in use.
The alternative for many unskilled people would be to be unemployed and having even less income, would that be more or less inhumane?
Edge of Tomorrow Sequel Gets a Title, Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt to Return
I wish there were more (co-ed) fraternal organizations without the cult aspects. You know — a nice house, a pretty flag, a space to hang out and talk about interesting things. There's a certain social niche that just doesn't get filled by jobs or single-purpose meetups. Reading about this startup feels me with a deep sort of longing, despite knowing that it's a corporate construct.
Indian train network makes history by employing transgender workers
Sprint abuses the credit laws to punish those switching carriers
I loved House of Leaves. The most recent example where the 'shape' of the content really contributed to the experience, albeit in a much, much subtler way, was Infinite Jest.

While cramming stuff into multiple-page-long footnotes and footnotes with footnotes felt a bit gimmicky at first, a few experiences stand out:

1. getting so drawn into a long footnote that I forgot it was a footnote. The confusion upon getting back to the main story felt right for that point in the story (or the book in general)
2. a large number of footnotes that were mildly interesting at first and turned out to be hugely valuable later on (but not crucial to enjoying the book).
3. footnotes that were funny precisely because they were footnotes and somewhat self-aware of it.

If you like Wallace' essays or the themes he kept going back to (depression, self-analysis, addiction, irony, media), I can highly recommend going through the effort of reading the book. It took me multiple tries over a period of maybe a decade to finally finish. Once I got past 200 pages it became difficult to put the (massive) book down and now, weeks later, I'm still thinking about it regularly. Few books have had that effect on me.
The people working for Foodora have the same qualifications. That's what the article is all about.
In a lab that does clinical work, replacing a single instrument could mean having to re-validate all the tests the lab does, update protocols, get inspections from regulatory bodies, etc... it requires people to spend large amounts of time not doing their "regular" jobs.
Despite being a big fan of open source software, this does not make a difference. Microsoft released patches for new windows system relatively quickly (in March if I recall correctly).

I bet there are still tons of systems that suffer from the Shellshock, or Heartbleed because they are either not updated at all or they are running old linux version which are no longer supported (I bet there are still tons of RHEL/Centos 2, 3, 4, and 5, which do no longer get security update or the companies do not have extended support contracts).

The real issue is that people are afraid of updates because they tend to break things. They do not want to invest into "slow rollout strategies" and the like.

If updates were applied immediately to 10% (or maybe even less if the company is big enough) of all machines, and if there was a way to quickly rollback the update, there would be less problems and the consequences of failed updates would be less serve. This way you can have your systems up-to-date within 48h (maybe: 1% of 'key users' who do not freak out if things break, and then after maybe 4h 10% of normal users who can call "IT support" to roll back the update, and after 24-48h, to all PCs. This would be even easier for stateless servers because you could redirect all requests to other servers if the 10% fail with 0 downtime).
Never mind the word "cinematic", the point is the festival and similar movie awards have a certain definition for what kind of moving picture entertainment they consider eligible for their awards. The definition includes that the general public should be able to go to a cinema and buy a ticket to see the movie on a big screen.

That's not saying other forms of entertainment cannot have value, just that Cannes is about a certain form.
"Compare that to Asian societies where some companies have an [usually older] tea and coffee lady in the break room. The pay is usually next to non-existent - the lady is usually retired and has a variety of savings and a safety net. She doesn't do it for a paycheck, but she craves human contact, so helping out with tea and coffee while chatting to younger employees is fulfilling her social (but never financial) needs at that age."

When I used to live in Singapore I saw a lot of miserable looking hunchbacked old ladies and men cleaning food courts and they were for sure doing it for financial reasons:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-06/what-reti...

The worst part is the excuse - the country is staggeringly wealthy, vastly unequal and yet excuses itself with "we can't afford these pensions any more" because "we have fewer children and higher life expectancy", presuming that GDP growth has obviously been zero for the last 40 years and we just haven't noticed that the money actually is there.
Just curious, why do you care so much about them? They are just data for analytics. Everyone is probably just clicking on them not typing manually.
However has to be said that uber eats is not their core business. I've heard about it before but never used it. They should probably leave that business to others.
To those who work for Uber and other similar companies:

We, the masters of gigeconomy salute you! Thank you for building our unicorns with your hard work and dedication. Thank you for using your cars, homes and other item without being reimbursed for that in any shape or form. We no longer have to resort to the old school slavery, as thanks to you we now just need to build and app, ignore existing laws and talk about 'disruption' to control you.

/s
GitHub should just buy ZenHub
And make it available for every browser.
I see your point. In Sweden, I see they don't have a minimum wage, and that they use collective bargaining to make agreements. Since Uber Eats is new, I imagine they haven't established a union yet.

I wonder how that will play out.
Not everyone can get a job at foodora. They clearly invest to those employees that they choose.
One argument for Linux here is that people in the know could have patched it themselves and recompiled the kernel or userland utility causing the problem. Or people after the fact, without having to wait for Microsoft. With Windows, you get what you're given, when they want to provide it (essentially).
... or anywhere else.
Personally, I consider the approach "nothing done on the clients" problematic on many levels. I like what Apple is doing, like trying to make the client phones do the processing there, and not moving everything to the cloud, but still keeping the phones somewhat harder to be attacked "en masse". But there they have the user base that has grown effectively from nothing, on another side the whole personal computing approach has other historical development and expectations. The oldest known computing approach was actually "dumb terminals" but moving completely in that direction is quite wasteful.

At the end, I blame Microsoft for not recognizing enough what their users actually want: I know a lot of the companies which actually pay "the Microsoft tax" (as much as the Microsoft accounting is considered, they "use Windows 10") while in fact using Windows XP and anything but 10.

And they are right to do so. The problem with everything after XP wasn't that the companies wouldn't pay for support. The problem was that Microsoft "innovates" in the areas that businesses find directly harmful. The business would of course like updates, would of course like better and safer protocols implemented, would of course turn on new security settings if they would be delivered, but they don't want all the annoyance of all that doesn't have to do anything with the infrastructure, like "Windows or Windows Server which you have to use through the new 'phone' UI."

In short, there are many reasons there's a lot of Windows XP use, and Microsoft simply decided that they don't care.

Linux is of course even worse, even with the efforts of Red Hat to have long-term stable OS versions, the concept is that most of what the user consider "just apps" are typically so dependent of so many random stuff that maintaining the stability is unnecessarily hard.

Finally, Apple traditionally doesn't care for the company use of their products much.

Which leaves most of the infrastructures in not having any "straightforward" choice. And "redeveloping everything" every time the OS companies decide to "innovate" is really not possible.

That's were we are now. There's simply not enough awareness among the OS companies that "every non-programming entity" wants the stable infrastructure. Instead, the attention deficit goals of the managers of the moment are typically chased.
It seems that a root problem is not the proprietary OS, but the proprietary and abandoned drivers, hardware management tools, and patient record systems the obsolete OS is required to support.

Open source might be part of the answer to this, or some kind of legal 'right to migrate'.

If all of your patient records are in some ancient software, the new vendor would probably be happy to get them out again if there were documents or a codebase saying how.

If you need XP to run ExpensiveScannerManager95, if you had a legal right to get the code somehow, I'm sure you could find you an SME that would port the driver to windows 10.

Maybe we / our companies and governments need these legal rights now. But what exactly should they be?
That would not be sustainable and would probably lead to some kind of uprising.
And that's fine... as long as you don't connect them to the network and expect them to interact with other clients. And that's often the case for these standalone machines and tools.

The problem we're having in the real world are all of the companies and schools that have 15 year old machines that they use for reading email and filling in spreadsheets that are connected to the internet because their corporate IT was a guy that liked computers in high school and was hired with zero training.

Shame too, since almost all of those cases would be well covered with Linux distributions, or now even Chromebooks.
To be fair uber eats is quite a different to the uber core service. I didn't even know that uber eats had any significant market share.
Wikileaks should have disclosed before dumping publicly.

Burning down the house to prove that there are fire safety issues is the wrong approach.
Not sure about that - might be that Foodora would not hire people who cannot speak Swedish well enough. Also, Uber had no cardio/speed test. It seems that everybody with a clean criminal record can apply at Uber, but Foodora is more restrictive. Maybe like Play Store vs App Store.
Yeah, but e-bikes have very limited range which would quickly become an issue on longer runs. The systems are awfully heavy to pedal unassisted; well at least my Bionx conversion was (have removed it since).
I don't think Linux distributions from 2001 are receiving security updates today. The only thing going for a free(as in beer) OS is that upgrades are free, but the main reason that so many corporate systems are still on XP is compatibility, not the cost of the upgrade license which is peanuts for large orgs affected by this. And Linux distros from 2001 would still have the exact same problem.

Consider the fact that Windows has the best backward compatibility in the business, while even drivers break across relatively minor Linux kernel versions and compatibility is likely to be a bigger problem with Linux.
This is essentially an argument against having a minimum wage in general (and more broadly, certain labor regulations). It's a complex issue that we could argue about for pages and pages of comments, but suffice to say the vast majority of the population in the US, let alone Sweden, disagree with you.

Which is that in some cases it is better to have some unemployed people and some (ideally a lot more) people earning a good wage, versus both groups earning a crappy wage. Combined with a welfare system.
Yes, but there isn't a choice. You are imagining products which don't exist. Lab hardware is generally very specific and there is usually only a handful of machines suitable for a given application, all of which run out of date software even before they are purchased. The best machine our lab has for running gels appears to be from the 1980s and is using 5 1/4" floppies. Some clinical trials run for 5 years or longer - the equipment needs to be standardised for that period of time. At the moment our IT disconnect it from the network and they are used standalone, which seems sensible and would have been useful in this case.
In the end, most AI/DL implementations in products are fluff. It feels like a lot of products are about "HEY LOOK AT ME, I CAN DO IT TOO!", which screams immaturity of the concepts.

From personal experience, many customers ask about our capabilities - but when it actually comes to using any of them there are only a handful of actually relevant ML algorithms that are useful, and those used to be called 'statistics' up until fairly recently.
How does this apply to London I wonder?