skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As someone who used to jailbreak devices almost instantly when a tool was out, I have found myself really not needing a jailbreaking in recent years. The OS itself has matured a lot, I seem to have outgrown the "tweak mentality" and no longer find join in it, but most importantly, the security implications of jailbreaking (breaking the sandbox, running untrusted 3rd party software at the root level and the jailbreak tool itself - blob binary that has rarely been open sourced in recent years). It's just not worth the risk anymore.

On the other hand, for low level development on a lab device, jail-breaking is invaluable.
That's not really rare in Go.
Could someone explain why I should build a language developed entirely by and for writing Apple ecosystem products? It seems like if I'm not targeting MacOS or iOS directly, the long list of benefits suddenly looks much, much smaller compared to e.g. JVM, .NET, Go, etc etc.

"letʼs start hacking, letʼs start building something, letʼs see where it goes pulling on the string" feels scarily accurate, and it's unclear where the language will be in 5 years.

Among other things, there's no way to disable objective-c interop, even though it complicates the language and feels like someone merged smalltalk, C++, and ML—not a pretty combination. But—literally the only reason you'd enable that would be to work with Cocoa/UIKit.

I'm still out on ARC—it was much less of a problem than I expected on my last project, but it never feels like an optimal solution, and you can never just "forget about it for the first draft" the way you can a VM's GC.
My understanding is the instruction set isn't as far removed as you seem to imply, and the huge differences are in programming model/compiler.

AVX-512 has many of the primitives required, and ISPC ports the GPU programming model to CPU SIMD.
For that to happen Swift needs to be usable at Java level in all OSes where JVM/JDKs (some of them with AOT support since the early days of Java) do exist.

I am still waiting for first class support on Windows on the download page.

Right now Rust has much better OS support than Swift.
It’s time to protect the public domain
Yes,

Here's a version that's hosted on ProductHunt - https://giveaway.producthunt.com/landing?promo_id=83848bb5-f...

Specifically, you might be interested in this text right before the big "enter" button:

> By entering this campaign I agree and consent to recieve emails, communications and promotions from Product Hunt Inc., theSkimm (a daily email newsletter to stay in the know), Scott's Cheap Flights, Journy, The Wirecutter and Conde Nast Traveler.

You can hate the promotion, but you're certainly not required to join it. And, it's certainly not the same thing as Scott selling addresses of people already on his mailing list.

As for this:

> And you REALLY believe that using a search on a site suddenly is enough for your private data to be just given to any shady exploitative company on the planet?

Using your words, can you show me the exact phrasing where that is happening anywhere in this example?
This is just like used books and various items on ebay coming up for 1cent with $15 shipping charges.
Having to call 999 this week. I did not think 112 or 911 would work. Its the adrenalin that kicks in and 999 is just engrained to us in the UK.
I'm excited to see that the Filecoin project is getting an update. It long seemed to be stale, with IPFS being the main priority. While a new shiny website and this podcast is up, the new promised Filecoin paper isn't yet public.

It will be interesting to see how it compares to Maidsafe. A notable difference is that Filecoin uses a transaction ledger, while Maidsafe promises to use groups of nodes 'close by' to maintain a consensus: https://blog.maidsafe.net/2015/01/29/consensus-without-a-blo...
Another ridiculous thing about United Basic economy that doesn't seem like it would save them money is that you can't check in online early you have to do it at the airport...
From what I see, POTUS is circling in basic 1000 words.
By the way, thanks for your perspective and the questions it made me start thinking about. As I mentioned in my original post, I will likely change my mind about everything several times.
> As someone who spent over 20 years writing applications in C, anything built on C is crap and that includes C++ and Objective C.

Maybe that the problem, if you see C++ as something "built on C" then it logical that the see a lot of the same problem. C++ evolved from C to specifically address a lot of the weakness in C.

> Every language feature that makes debugging more necessary, harder to do and more time intensive sucks. Dangling pointers are the absolute worst.

language design is an exercise in compromise, and there is space for multiple compromise points on the spectrum. C++ decided (for better or for worst) to go for performance vs nice debugging experience.

> I can easily give up multiple inheritance for a more functional language that's far easier to write correct code in.

Am i the only getting tired of this kind of blanket statements ?
I like them a lot also. Full credit on cancellations up to 10 minutes before take-off, two bags checked free, and no hubs (point to point, non-stop is the way to fly). At least they are unlikely to be bought by another airline at his point. With a market cap of $37.6 billion, they are the second biggest airline world wide and just under Delta's $39.4 billion.
> "Paying someone else to do the work doesn't change who was responsible."

Never claimed Europeans weren't responsible (in fact I clearly stated the opposite), I factually stated something wrong in the original article: Europeans were not going around kidnapping natives at large like the article suggests, they were buying them from the other natives that were the ones actually enslaving them.

Can't understand why you are trying so hard to hide that part of history.

> "In mainland Portugal, slavery wasn't abolished in Brazil until 1869."

Yes, and this article is about Lisbon. Lisbon, is in mainland Portugal.

> "Plus, this is about Protestant Portugal"

Protestant Portugal? What are you talking about? Protestantism was only allowed in Portugal after the mid XIX century (and after that still mostly inexistent). So, basically when slavery was also forbidden by law in there.
Rasbbery OS
Meetings and sub-committee hearings on Space Command... but no time for the same on healthcare... Not trying to start a discussion, just noting the irony.
Almost. It takes a lot to go after a judge. The big case that comes to mind is the Cash for Kids Scandal, where Honest Services Fraud was one of the charges used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

I didn't know there was even such a thing as honest service fraud until recently. It appears to have a lot of problems as a charge, but it certainly feels like it should be used a lot more to simply prevent some of the Machiavellian screw-jobs modern business (and politics) inflict on people. I know, I'm getting a little "ranty", but doesn't the term "honest service fraud" seem to fit so many of the problems caused by big organizations today?
The files are long on purpose -- as the article says: The code samples where chosen by finding popular repos for each language and using the longest file in each repository.
> Recently, basically every major company other than Apple has found that product organization yields better results, because each individual product can better respond to competitive threats in their market.

Do you have a source for that? Not because I'm challenging you, but because I'd like to read more on it.
As I said in another comment, there seems to be a battle between extremes. On one end, the "complex" C++, Scala and others. On the other, simplistic stuff, such as JavaScript, Go, etc. It's probably gross injustice to put Go and JS in the same category, so I apologize, but for this argument, let's over look it. I think Swift and Rust are a good middle ground here.

With your large project, in hindsight would you prefer Go or C++? At least with C++, you can go as complex as you want, or stop and set some "rules" that should not be passed. But I err on the side of having the option rather than being restricted.
Also this: http://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/
I think the reference is to the Formal Dress and Dinner Dress Blue/White Jacket uniforms, not the less formal Dinner Dress Blue/White or service dress uniforms.
%224%3A44%22%3A+Jay+Z+Makes+a+Move
I realize this is probably unpopular, but I personally think we shouldn't aim for beginner-friendliness in our production languages. If we can do it then fine, but it shouldn't come at the cost of anything else.

People are only beginners for a (hopefully) short time, then they're not. Making things better for them in the post-beginner period is far more advantageous, since that's when the vast majority of productive work occurs.

There is certainly a place for beginner-friendly languages. People need to learn to program at some point, and something which is aimed at helping them do that is really useful. But there's no reason that it should be the same language used by professionals to do real work.

Imagine changing the design of a 747 to make it easier to fly for new pilots. We wouldn't dream of doing such a thing. The cockpit of a 747 is for experienced professionals. If you're learning to fly then you belong in the cockpit of something like a Cessna 152.

Note that I'm not advocating for difficulty just for the sake of difficulty, and I don't want to keep people out. And if a language can accommodate beginners without making things worse for professionals then let's go for it. But it shouldn't be a major goal of most languages.
A lot of the early discussion about P2P dark periods is largely ignoring the usage for internal networks rather than being the basis of customer facing applications. Many large companies (fb, twitter) use P2P protocols for internal distribution of resources. They can make far more assumptions about network topology when they control the network thus these aspects of P2P algorithms don't get applied to the general internet. I'd argue this period was when people really figured out the value of BitTorrent and decided it was often too difficult to expose to the end user.

FWIW, I built a BitTorrent tracker "framework" (chihaya.io) that a few orgs use to get the advantages of P2P with whatever extra middleware they need for their use cases.
"You don't own space, naysa does"
POSIX syntax, entered into BusyBox shell (not even Bash or anything), running __on__ an ARM embedded system:

# echo $(( (0x0110 << 14) & 0xDEADBEEF ))
262144
# printf "%x\n" 262144
40000

Now let's make a calculator REPL out of these:

# while read expression ; do eval "result=\$(( $expression ))"; printf "dec = %d, hex = %x\n" $result $result ; done
2 + 2
dec = 4, hex = 4
a=3
dec = 3, hex = 3
b=4
dec = 4, hex = 4
a + b
dec = 7, hex = 7
(a + b) << 3
dec = 56, hex = 38
[Ctrl-D][Enter]
#
No, you just check if the fee per KB is more than x. Where x is a fee that is likely enough to confirm. This is practically instant.
Why We Chose Typescript
On 2 - I completely agree but much of the "validity" or "value" in bitcoin is there due to the incentive to get some. There would be little economic activity if there wasn't a perceived value and there is little to no perceived value if one doesn't think holding onto such a currency is a good investment. I don't think there's a way around it.
Ask HN: Can Facebook's color-background stuff be adblocked?
When entering a Facebook status update using Firefox -- and this occurs even in safe mode, ever since the introduction of the colored background code, there is a horrific lag, sometimes even holding onto initial letters (so that, i.e., "somewhat" might come out as "omeswhat").

Chrome does not have this problem, but Firefox does on two different systems. I'd like to just adblock whatever code handles this stupid color background stuff, if that's possible -- the fact that FB Purity can do it suggests it is.

I tried unzipping FB Purity's Firefox extension (XPIs are just ZIPs) and looking at the code, but I couldn't figure it out.

I know m.facebook.com could let me skip it, but that's not a fun interface to stay within.

Any thoughts?
Voice search will not be actually useful until it can respond naturally to naturally voiced questions. The whole point of voice UI is to make things more natural for human interaction. If it's just a matter of how well computers can interpret speech, well, that's a fun parlor game, but it's not what is implicitly promised by a voice UI, and it's definitely not what's explicitly promised by the marketing for these services. And ultimately until these things can interact naturally, they are doomed to being a novelty.
How a Software Update Fixed Curiosity's Wheels
Can you plot his most used to least used, please.
Chess piece survival rates
Nice to see him finally at terms after that one 1997 game--he seems to have been touchy about it even as recently as 2014:

"I think we'll never know unless Kasparov says himself, but you probably won't get to talk to him because he doesn't like to talk about the subject...Kasparov spent years suggesting that IBM cheated, and he hasn't really talked about the game for many years - until now."

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/08/338850323/kasparov-vs-deep-blu...
Many of us feel that way.

We have a schizophrenic attitude towards C++.

On one way we love the language, the expressive power it gives us, the type safety taken from Simula and Algol, thanks to C++'s type system.

On the other hand like Chris puts it "has its own class of problems because itʼs built on the unsafety of C".

So some of us tend to work around it, by using safer languages and only coming down to C++ for those tasks, where those better languages cannot properly fulfil them.

But as the CVE database proves, it only works if everyone on the team cares about safety, otherwise it is a lost game, only fixable by preventing everyone on the team to write C style unsafe code to start with.

Sure nowadays there are plenty of analysers to ensure code safety, but they work mostly on source code and like any tool, suffer from people really caring to use them.
> I personally use a very large backpack that holds at least as much as a carry-on suitcase, yet the fact that it is in backpack form means they count it as my personal item and don't give me a hard time.

Interesting; they always officially state that the “personal item” must fit under the seat in front of you, which clearly a large backpack won't. No airline's ever enforced it that I've noticed, but then I've never flown Basic Economy (and haven't flown since it was a thing.)

I wouldn't rely heavily, though, on that laxity not changing without notice.
Exception handling in constructors
I saw this when it was first posted. I was sure it would be on the front page by now.
This is just so wrong it makes my stomach hurt....
Any ideas on how the hacker community could positively affect this??
I realize my argument is pessimistic, but it's much more realistic than calling "my" senator.

Our system is broken. Calling or contacting our representatives is essentially futile.

Honestly, the best way to change anything, would be to get rich and try to buy some influence. Which is exactly what got us here in the first place, rich people buying influence.
Avoiding dangling pointers requires a bit of discipline in pre-ARC Objective-C and C++, but now that we have ARC, isn't ObjC pretty much as safe as Swift? (Unless you explicitly use "assign" properties, of course.)
Do they even check if you've paid for a full carry-on as opposed to a personal bag? I've flown Frontier a few times worried about the size of my backpack, and I never saw anything on the computer when I scanned my boarding pass to indicate any of that information. I'm fairly certain the gate agent didn't even look at my baggage.
Unawezaje kumridhisha mpenzi
nimekuwa kwenye mahusiano mda mrefu lakini . nashindwa kuwafikisha kleleni, usafiri wadau
The cynic in me sees these approaches as a corporate-friendly way to be able to hire more "juniors" to save money. Entire frameworks and languages seemingly exist to enable low barrier entry to junior developers without any effort of the corporate to invest in these junior developers. There needs to be a balance between the need for junior developers to be productive and restricting technology just so as many as possible junior developers can be productive at low cost for the corporate. With stuff like React Native and Electron, I feel the former takes the lead at the expense of technology.

Agree that simplistic languages could work well in academia, as the first language that students see. I studied C as my first language, and I am not sure that is optimal. Nor do I think Java is that language, as many study that first, these days.
Actually,

I do have a requested challenge for you: US laws.

Can you evaluate this law that just was signed 3 days ago:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml...

(There is a link to a PDF of the law if you prefer to DL the PDF first...)
Sure, some folks get clean using a variety of methods, many with little research. So what? If the success rate isn't very high, it probably isn't the best program.

We could research this stuff and then listen to the research. Use the methods with the best general outcome for the patient, based on medical proceedings. And perhaps use these things with iffy outcomes - AA, for example - as add-ons or options for patients to choose from, with a medical doctor's blessing.
https://moneroforcash.com/monero-vs-dash-vs-zcash-vs-bitcoin...

Shows Monero in better light!
Thanks for sharing your story and I'm sorry that your Mom still tries to pressure you. I haven't been a parent for very long so I don't really know what the hell I'm talking about, but based on my experience, it's got to be really hard to let go when your kids become adults. And, I love nobody like I love my daughter, so in all honesty, I don't know what I will be like when she does things that I disagree with.

On the topic of religion, I like to think that I'll be fairly liberal. I hope that I will show her one system while she is young and then back off when she is in her teens to let her find her own way.

But, unfortunately, parenting has shown me one thing. It turns out that, for all that I like to talk about science and to the extent that I consider myself 'rational', I am mostly an ape.

I am fiercely and irrationally protective of her. And I am just as fiercely and irrationally proud of each and every one of her accomplishments. Still though, I have a tremendous amount of respect for her, so I promise you (and her) that I will do my best to let her make her own decisions.

However, seriously, thank you again for sharing your perspective with me. I'm sorry that you are going through this, but I will remember this comment and I promise that I will consider your words any time I want to pressure her to believe what I do. Thank you very much.
> Aggregation, composition, encapsulation are as are much as fundamental notions in OOP as inheritance.

You say that as if these things are not just as easily expressed in FP -- if not even easier.

Aggregation is just records-of-records.

Encapsulation is just "abstract data types", e.g. ML modules with abstract members, or non-exported data constructors in Haskell. Another option would be simply closing over whatever you're trying to hide. Another option would be existential types. (There's some overlap among all of these.)

Composition... well, actually I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "composition" in the context of OO. Can you explain what you mean?
Then just say you or they, as you normally would. Why talk to this person in the first place if they upset you so much?
That is bit different analysis, but I will. Ping me on @r_kierzkowski on twitter, so we will stay in touch.
Repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673777
Do remember that there are airlines that charge explicitly for use of the overhead bin cough United cough, but apart from that this is solid advice.
If the battery is full, it is full and it stays full and the charger does not try to charge it anymore. Especially in laptops, where the charging circuitry is more advanced.

It may top up once a month. What I know, it is better to keep Lithium batteries full than keep them empty. If the voltage drops much below 2 volts, it is dead and stays dead.

40/80%-rule comes from satellites, where they continually charge and discharge batteries every day. With this regime Li-on lasts forever indeed.
> Doesn't TensorFlow support random variables too?

The paper doesn't explain this well, but although you can put random variables in TensorFlow programs, you cannot backpropagate through them. With stochastic computation graphs, you can differentiate the expected loss as long as the probability density/mass functions of the random variables are differentiable. One of the main benefits of stochastic computation graphs is that you can train with arbitrary, non-differentiable simulators as long as they only depend on the parameters indirectly though random variables.

> They even compare their performance to TensorFlow on a model with random variables.

The naive variational autoencoder of Figure 2 cannot be trained in TensorFlow since the random variable depends on the parameters. However, this particular model can be reparameterized so that it doesn't depend on them without affecting the expected loss (Section 4.6) and the resulting model can be trained in TensorFlow.
Apparently, the elegance of ObjC's handling of nil objects is considered also "unsafe" these days. I disagree with that specifically.
Apparently birds sitting on phone lines could trigger 111.
https://stratechery.com/2016/apples-organizational-crossroad...
Looks like the Senate is in disagreement with the House on this:

https://www.govconwire.com/2017/06/despite-disagreement-hous...

> The Senate Armed Services Committee isn’t calling for a Space Force in its version of the NDAA; and is instead stressing the importance of cyber warfare and a more conservative approach to spending.
hahaha no this was totally unintentional - but great point about the signal we're sending!
Poverty is not a personal choice, but a reflection of society
we're getting request for collaboration. how do you see account sharing working in your opinion?
realizing the promise of a world populated with tiny intelligent devices at every turn – embedded in our clothes, scattered around our homes and offices

What an incredible responsibility we have to protect our families from the misuse of this capability.
good to hear! :D
Neural networks and Kittens =
That article is incredible. I'm almost waiting for a "Onion"-esque quote of "Families with no homes and no opportunity are inconvenience to bikers."

"Man, I used to really enjoy my morning bike ride, and it was nice the way the highway gave gave me cover from the elements when it rains - but with all these poor people seeking shelter here is a really downer. Not a great way to start of the morning. Can't we make them move into the field or out of the way or something? It's kinda selfish of them to set up right here in my bike lane. My tax dollars paid for this highway - I bet they don't even pay taxes... And what if someone runs into one of them and gets hurt? You can't sue them for the bike repairs, they don't even have any money. They're like someone driving without car insurance, totally irresponsible! The city needs to do something about this."

While clearly satire, It's amazing how much the focus really seems to be on the perception of people being homeless, or the chance of a biker being hurt, rather than actually on any of the people living there.
In the old days we learned directly with a mix of BASIC and Z80 (or 6502) Assembly, at the age of 10.

I was already doing C++ for MS-DOS while at the technical school (15-18 years old) and learned OOP via Turbo Pascal 5.5 and 6.0 before getting into C++.

Just look at kids today doing C++ with Arduino at school with similar ages.

So I really fail to understand the whole pandering "fresh college grad" concept.