skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In my case, it is simply too expensive to download updates. I live in a country which is notorious for expensive data prices. I don't mind interruptions. That's a good problem to have. The choice for me is between spending a week's worth of groceries to download updates periodically or spending that money to buy food and risk getting my PC infected.
In my case, buy a large SD card to put the apps on, then find out that only the primary storage can hold apps. I think this limitation has been lifted in more recent Android versions, but - of course - I can't upgrade.

Moving all my photos and ebook .pdfs off did alleviate the burden somewhat, but hasn't completely solved it.

My current workaround for very large apps is to uninstall, redownload, install. Apparently, holding both the update and the installed app uses much more space than doing a fresh install.
I'm currently on Windows 7 and don't want to accidentally install Windows 10. Turning off updates seems to be the only reliable way to do this.
Does this guy work for microsoft ? It reads like a partisant piece for microsoft.

Totally overlooked the suspicious timeline of Microsoft releasing patched for vulnerabilities that were exploited for a long time by the NSA right after it was made apparent those had been stolen and were about to be released in the wild.
No question asked about NSA having known and exploited those vulnerabilities for a while, no question about Microsoft possibly willingly playing along or being legally forced to do so.

No mention that disabling Microsoft update trend is a logical answer to Microsoft using the system to silently installing spying software, breaking the system altogether, disabling pirated versions among others.

No mention that the solution to things like the wannycry outbreak is not turning on windows update but less windows and more other OS and backups. With a sane backup policy ransomware is merely a joke.
Yes, but they continue to run while the library is being updated. That's the
point. They can get restarted once the update process finishes, which takes
a lot less time than be shut down, wait for update, and be started again.

From what I know, Windows doesn't allow a library to be replaced until it's
not used by anything, which is more intrusive and is IMO the root cause
(though indirect) why people hate updating Windows.
Ask HN: What online course would you love to study online
Excluding technical subjects (statistics,technologies, etc.), what would you like to spend 50-ish hours learning assuming the platform and course is good.
Why can't Microsoft or NSA or whatever good samaritan use the same vulnerability and attack vector to force-spread the update or at least a patch of some kind?
Sorry, I meant things like dependency management among services.

I don't think systemd supports what you are asking but it shouldn't be too hard to write a service that restarts other services if their shared libraries change?
The reason for turning off updates is (I believe) rarely that one doesn't want important security updates. Just as Ubuntu servers have an option to automatically install critical security updates and for the rest you run `apt-get` when you want, the same should be available on windows.

Blaming the users is nice and easy, but Microsoft definitely deserves half of the blame (if not more).
You'd be just as upset if they didn't upgrade to the later iOS versions either. Gotta drop support somewhere; that hardware is getting old.
...and once you are on Windows 10, you will need a degree in Computer Science to disable updates :). I was forced into Windows 10. To turn off updates, I had to disable the Windows Update service. There is no user friendly option to turn them off.
If you need more storage, many laptops can have the optical drive replaced with another hard drive.

http://www.frys.com/product/8845262
This just seems like a terrible idea to try at an airport.
He was comparing the design goals of the original iPhone to the preexisting smartphone market 12+ years ago. The fact that it was designed to not require a stylus for basic usage WAS a big deal. If you never used a Palm Treo or a Windows tablet or a PocketPC device in the early 2000s, you may not realize what he's talking about, but a stylus was absolutely required for most or all basic operations on competing devices at the time, and that UI model was (clearly, in hindsight) holding back the entire industry. If you don't remember having to use Graffiti to scrawl out characters on the bottom third of a PalmOS device, this quote has likely never been contextualized for you.
This is an interesting and genuine case where I can see that it doesn't make sense.

In your case it should be possible to have a windows "branch" with just critical vulnerabilities patched with binary diffs or something rather than 680-odd Mb patch sets.
Personally, I run a single Win10 desktop (all of my laptops are Linux-only) that I update roughly annually, by allocating an entire day for going through the updates one by one and getting rid of any Microsoft malware along the way. I am far more concerned about Microsoft's own malware than any ransomware floating around the Internet.

Of course, I've also had SMBv1 disabled for many years (there's no reason to retain support for it unless you need to support WinXP machines, in which case you have my condolences), the desktop sits on an isolated subnet with a very restrictive router and firewall in front of it and all telemetry, Cortana and other malware has been eviscerated via group policy and other settings, along with router-level blocking of telemetry and update servers.

I fully understand that my case is atypical and the average user isn't going to follow comparable precautions, so I don't actively recommend my approach to anyone else, but it works great for me. Apart from wasting about a day per year on maintenance, I'm as happy with the OS itself as I've ever been with any Windows version, and it fulfills my Windows development and occasional gaming needs just fine. Obviously, I'm much less happy with Microsoft as a company for forcing me to go through such lengths to make their OS into something I'm comfortable using.
And also taking multiple Gb of your hdd for the sake of optimizing a one time executed update.

When you have a small SSD it sucks.
I haven't used Windows since 7, but then it just did whatever it could (perhaps only download) until shutdown/restart. It might've asked if I wanted to, but I just said no, and then it did it's thing whenever I was shutting down anyway.

Is it not still like that? MacOS seems worse to me, since restarting when an update exists isn't sufficient: you have to remember to go back to the update and click 'update & restart'...

Linux handles this best though, by a long shot.
A "general purpose" computer that will execute any appropriately compiled binary no questions asked.
Ask HN: What is your home media player setup?
I download movies on to my external HDD and plug that into the TV to watch them.

The issue with this is the frequent plugging (and un-plugging) to copy movies, fix bugs (e.g. audio track not working), adding subtitles and so on.

I am looking at ways to hack this to make it simpler. I have a Chromecast and PS3.

Is there any way I can use these to make this process simpler?

Thanks!
I've signed all the non-compete clauses that where present in my contracts because those clauses are simply null and void.
And in 3 dimensions it's points and planes that are dual - and finding the line between two points or the common line of two planes can now be done in a similar way, but using Plücker coordinates for the lines instead.
As a self taught front end developer, I got my first job as a paid internship after narrowly missing out on the original job the interview was for. It's an odd story, but it worked out none the less. Personal connections helped a bit too, especially since my second job was gotten purely because I knew someone working at the company (well, running the company) and it turned out they were hiring for the exact job I needed.
Does that means the wannacrypt attack has paid only 60,000$ ?
Isn't it $2.13 + tips if $2.13 + tips >= min. wage else min. wage ?
When a certain group has historically been underprivileged or target of discriminatory conduct, a sort of social repairing is in order to balance things, it's called Affirmative Action.

You are basically accusing the mending of sexism of being sexist. That only makes sense when you either don't understand or don't agree that sexism even exists, or maybe in some level is ok with it existing.
Technical Solution to All Windows Kernel Exploits
I always recommend against Paint.NET precisely because of its adware-ridden website. There are enough free, open-source alternatives that you don't really need it. Hell, even IrfanView can do little image edits if you need something really damn quick.
The ability to predict behavior using data, and change it, has lead to Brexit and Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great...

In short, they identified easily manipulated people by analyzing Facebook profiles, and manipulated them through Facebook ads. For me this is like a real-life botnet. The laws say 1 person, 1 vote, so why not manipulate the person to vote the way "we" want them. In a big-data way, targeting swing states...
Please take your keyboard and smash it over your head, many times.
What Plato knew about behavioural economics
A child in the cockpit once accidentally disengaged some controls which eventually resulted in a crash that killed all 75 people on board.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593
> The logical conclusion to that would be that everyone wants to be an employee and nobody wants to be an employer.

This is interesting. Let's say there is a a r=g, to r is slightly less than g world. Then people would try to maximize employment & investing that income. Sortof double dipping. Am I thinking about that correctly?

Also, r<g doesn't mean that you're 'never' going to make more than the growth in output, right? Theoretically good stewards would outpace the market.
I doubt it very much, specially since ELF was not even a thing in 1992 distributions with kernel versions still in the 0.x.y range.

ELF was being slowly introduced in 1994, with Slackware 2.0 being one of the first distributions to support it.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1059

So I really really doubt you can pick a static executable compiled against kernel 0.x.y, using a.out format and execute it in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as example.

Actually, I just need to take the dust out of my Walnut Creek CD's to prove my point.
Not sure if this is dilemma or abuse.

Also

https://medium.com/incerto/only-the-rich-are-poisoned-the-pr...
I am not sure that it's really feasible to decouple feature and security updates though. With Microsoft releasing two major feature updates a year, how many variations of this can they support if anyone along the way decides to freeze their current set of features and only get security updates for them?
Regardless, as a heavy Win10 user across several machines I've found the whole "disruptive" / "spyware" / "crapware" FUD being pushed by some HN posters to be way overblown. Yea, there have been a few annoyances such as the OneDrive ad that showed up a month or two ago, but these are all extremely minor compared to the mountains of advertising and tracking crap we get hit with every day from web sites, apps, and search engines.
This still isnt always useful. I work in an office that creates and runs CFD software. It often takes days, or weeks to run and the recent windows "feature" of rebooting when it wants to update with no way to shut it off has killed so many peoples work in progress. Its insane there is no ability to only update manually.
gcc --static
Ask HN: Could we use the same SMB vulnerability to distribute the windows patch?
Just wondering if that kind of idea is viable.
> That only happens if [case that isn't the only
one where this happens]

The whole point of active hours is that, when updates are pending, they install and the system reboots outside the hours in which I've expressed the desire to have my machine not reboot itself. Yet I've lost count of the number of times where this does not happen - I see an update notification, shrug and assume it'll be applied in the window I've set, and take no action - only to find the next day that the updates haven't been applied, the reboot hasn't been performed, and if I don't interrupt my work day by applying updates and rebooting immediately - which rarely takes less than 15 minutes, not counting getting all my tools up and going again - then I can rely on losing some work, and a lot of time, later on, when something important needs doing on a deadline. And that's insane! If for whatever reason the updates legitimately can't be applied in the window, the right action in response is to wait for the next window, and not to fuck-start my workday. That is always the wrong thing to do.

I mean, I get what you're saying, right? If active hours worked as claimed, you'd have a real point here. But they do not work reliably at all, and that's a whole 'nother issue.
Anybody knows if this chipset (SiS Mirage 3) has 3D support on Linux (for Kodi/OpenELEC)?
Only the Rich Are Poisoned: The Preference of Others
I wish I could buy tablets and computers the same way I buy synthesisers and mixers: knowing full well that they'll be just as useful in 20 years, as they are the day I bought them.

I look around me in the room I'm in currently and I see a massive collection of much-loved, very respected, well-used hardware: synthesisers. But I'm typing this message on a machine (MacBook) that is inevitably going to end up being replaced by something else, just because after a few years its not going to be as much use as it once could have been. This has happened already - with many a MacBook/tiBook, my iPad1/iPad2 collection, and so on.

But yet, the musical instruments still remain, even 30 years after their release, and even long after official support has ended. I chalk this up to completeness: musical instrument manufacturers know that a musical instrument that needs repair/maintenance/upgrades on a regular basis, isn't a musical instrument. (Its more of a toy.)

I wonder what could happen that would bridge this gap between these two worlds - on the one hand, effectively 'finished' products that are always very reliable and still work the way they were intended, decades on - versus on the other hand, 'unstable' products that will, basically, still work on a fundamental level 10 years from now, as long as I'm willing to do the work myself to keep them running.

I wish the computer manufacturers treated their products more like refined, finished, musical instruments than half-finished/never-finished sort-of tools whose functionality is never, really, set in stone for the ages.
>When the authorities are given such a powerful tool (and such a violating tool) it should have to prove significantly useful to continue to exist

Unfortunately, the only real constrain for it to not continue to exist would be to cost some people their political career due to media/public backlash and such.
This site is blocked in the middle east.
The anti-vaxxers analogy is utter nonsense and reads like a poor attempt at hitting the credibility of people disabling windows update.

The anti-vaxxer movement makes no sense outside the backfire effect, in almost all cases it has little to no basis or justifications. On the other hand there is a long history of very valid reasons of distrusting windows update and disabling it.

Using windows update to force people into windows 10 is only one of the most recent examples that windows update is by Microsoft and for the interest of Microsoft not the user.
This is totally different from the system update you have with apt and Debian.
If we look in the past we also have snake oil which is said to be a major cause for mistrust for doctors and medicine. Government had to step in and issue regulations in order for the public to regain trust and vaccinations is one of the very few remaining trust issues between the public and medicine.

If we want people to regain trust in auto-update there need to be something that prevent abuse. If that is regulations, liability laws, or just industry practice will be up to the future to decide. Until then a person will have to rational decide on auto-update as past people did with the uncertainty of not know what is snake oil and what is real.
Is it really hard to develop a ksplice / kexec analog for Windows kernel? (Yes, it is. But with Microsoft's dedicated research and resources, it should be possible.)

Interruptive updates are _the_ reason many people choose Mac OS X over Windows. Updates are, obviously, important. Restarts (and notifications) are bad and will be postponed and ignored, no matter how hard we try to educated users. Solution: throw all resources to minimize restarts during updates, make everything as automated as possible. I realize that it is harder to do for Windows, due to their idea of putting everything to the kernel, but this only exaggerates the urgent need for something like ksplice to be integrated.
I'd tend to agree, but if you just have to use that stylus right then, it's probably your best shot. AAAA cells on a blister card are rare as hen's teeth.
Kubelet: A Bottom-Up Approach to Understand Kubernetes
> Also for forcing restarts for everything.

And not restoring jack shit. I wouldn't mind Windows Update so much if it could competently restart my applications and restore my Explorer windows, but the only thing it does every fucking time is make the taskbar icons disappear until I force-restart the Explorer process.

Though I would still mind it a lot for the insanely slow and unhelpful update process at shutdown, every update requires half an hour of shutdown as the machine does who the fuck knows what with an unhelpful throbber telling you it's at 30% of some arbitrary process you've no idea about and which looks exactly as if the entire thing had crashed.
> I love the way he's compared the people who tell you to turn off auto-updates with anti-vaxxers; it's quite an apt analogy.

No, it isn't. Anti-vaxxers think that vaccines are harmful (or useless). Most users think security updates are important, they just don't want to be interrupted.
Some people run complex simulations that take days or weeks to run, and a forced reboot in the middle ruins progress. If someone needs to skip an update on their own machine and their own network that is their right.
We're sorry the java.net site has closed
I don't understand why americans are so obsessed about race, because I like you assume stuff and I assume you're american.

It doesn't matter what my skin color is since this is simply about gender and equality. I visited america recently and I've never been in a more diverse city in my life. You should know this by now. And it's obvious that I am a male since I disclosed it in my first post.

> It's not because someone wants to help women or minorities, that they're trying to take (equal) opportunity away from you.

Look at my home country Sweden, probably the most "feministic" country on earth, here there are several laws that only applies for women. 3/4 of university opportunities goes to women. Men lose 9/10 of all parental disputes when it goes to court. Recently there was suggestions to the government to pay for womens university education in IT. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Yeah, I do not believe you since the facts in my country is the exact opposite. Don't tell me you're for equality if you acts tell another story. I am very tired of that kind of shit. There is NO REASON for the organization to exclude single men. This is why I would never support the organisation or any other organisation that has the similar sexist and toxic goals.
I think rebooting the entire system to make sure all apps and libraries are reloaded is fine (I do that on linux servers at times if I made a big update and can spare the downtime). Making a user-friendly interface to only restart apps that need restarting sounds complicated.

But whatever windows does is way worse, I dread seeing the "please wait while Windows is configuring your updates" screen. I have an SSD, rebooting Windows takes less than 30 seconds, it's a non issue. But those update installs can take a long time and your computer is completely unusable while that happens.

It's also frustrating when that happens while shutting down because I normally turn off my computer's power outlet when I'm done (it switches off the rest of my equipment) so I have to wait patiently for Windows to allow my computer to shutdown before I can do that.
>You could still obfuscate information in your brain such that it's hard to decode.

And that would made you unemployable, subject to arrest, etc.

Political and legal issues don't get solved with technical workarounds (unless they can force the law to change -- which I guess would count as a legal change, not a technical workaround).
See also “A Mathematician’s Lament”, written by Paul Lockhart in 2002:

http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/devlin_03_08.html

“Sadly, our present system of mathematics education is precisely this kind of nightmare. In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being
done— I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.”
> Most of that foundational information is lost when it's not written down somewhere accessible; contrary to the answerer, only a small fraction is reconstructed by students as they learn the subject.

From "A Mathematician's Apology", G. H. Hardy:

> Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings: there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain.

From another angle: when developing new theories or models, your thoughts are all over the place and frankly it's boring to go over your own crappy notes afterwards and try to reconstruct them in a way that others can understand. And much of the time you forget exactly what happened along the way as well, so any story you reconstruct is going to have some hindsight bias, which defeats the purpose of trying to "teach the story".

Really, from the first answer:

> Based on my own experience as both a student and a teacher, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to learn is through "guided struggle".

This is the only way to "properly" learn mathematics or science. Anything else is only making you think you've learnt something.
Suggestion: Keep an eye on Go as an emerging data science language (See http://gopherdata.io/ for more info)
> Its insane there is no ability to only update manually.

There is.
The (games) boss who lives as a medieval knight
What causes that feeling of being watched
We've got four iPads in the house, and we're only now replacing the iPad Mini (first generation) with a new iPad 2017; we've also got an iPad 2 that's next in line for a replacement, but since it's still handling Netflix et al almost acceptably the 4yo can use it a while longer.

These things have survived three kids, I don't think we've had any other thing they've used live this long. Pretty darn impressive.
So I have blocked my mother's PC updating from Windows 8 to 10 because it broke everything for her - so I rolled it back. Have prevented the upgrade auto-occurring again by specifying we are on a "metered" connection, which seems to be the standard trick to prevent the upgrade to 10.

Any idea if this also prevents security updates?
See A Mathematician's Lament: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14331752
Accidental hero halts ransomware attack and warns this is not over