skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
How many lives could you personally have made better, by not reading Hacker News, and instead helping the homeless in your city?

> the allocation of our limited resources is a difficult and interesting problem

The one without sin cast the first stone. There is always a better, more impactful choice available today than spending time online or watching Netflix. Yet, it is unreasonable to expect others to live the life of Mother Teresa when oneself is writing it on such forums. Even the most good people alive today probably played a game, read a book or watched TV at times. People should not be judged on what they did in their off time, but what absolute good they have accomplished. Let Mother Teresa build all the silly clocks she wants.
What do you do if Tesla is using a Linear Congruential Generator[1] to generate their serial numbers? Then the highest number found gives no information, even probabilistically. I don't know what the laws are on VINs though, so maybe it's forced to be sequential.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_congruential_generator
I found it was 98% companies like ^^ that. The companies I actually worked in were bad.

I found two companies that seemed more or less sane (ok, but neither blew me away). One of them was receptive to hiring me but I got a different offer before we worked things out which I took and regretted. The other deliberated for, I think, two months before giving me an offer. That was more or less the last straw.

I turned them down, returned to London after that and doubled my take home pay.

Not long after I returned I discovered that not one but both of these companies were acquihired by Google when they opened an office in SG. I had a good chuckle at that.

Yeah, I'd avoid it. There are pockets of good stuff as there are anywhere, but I think they're fewer and further between.
This idea isn't particularly new: even the New Testament is written in what was basically street Greek rather than the more formal variant usually employed for written documents.
NBA player salaries are also not sustainable, they're going to have to drop once ESPN will only be able to charge people who actually watch sports instead of getting paid per cable subscriber regardless.
The whole point of encryption is that you cannot meaningfully compare 2 pieces of plaintext.

Homomorphic encryption doesn't change that.

The only way to compare plaintext is to decrypt the whole thing. So either you must trust a centralized org (like dropbox today), or you must trust a single centralized key (that could be done with homomorphic encryption).

(Also the best homomorphic algorithms still make small programs take days to execute)
"using cron to keep my cloud functions warm at a cost of pennies per month"

"you still pay the cold startup penalty on subsequent scale-ups"

That's probably why they don't care.

You just keep one warm AND you pay for it.

If you don't have parallel requests this is a good thing for you, bot everyone else doesn't have much gain from only having one hot instance.

On the other hand you can probably get around this with UI tricks when facing and end user. Native apps are installed anyway and web apps will be delivered via S3/CloudFront etc.
Real World Information Security Cyber Forum
Securing and validating transactions is not a new concept, and JavaScript is not a new technology.

What's new here is people with little experience handling billions of dollars in transactions, and their cavalier attitude towards other people's money.

What's also new is the absolutely incredible acceptance of these "hacks"... 150M here 500M there, who cares - the perps will never be found. Nobody is going to jail.
Once you've made $10M+, why would anyone care if they have to resign? Especially, when odds are they'll have another gig in no time.
Try applying through triplebyte. Their goal is a candidate blind, pure merit application process.

I used them in my last job search, and was super impressed with every step along the way. Low stress, and lots of constant feedback on how to make myself a better candidate.
In my company, we've 10 different teams. We are doing cutting-edge work in our niche. We use git repos, we extensively discuss things on Slack then summarize stuff in large paragraphs in Discourse. Then we commit the code to GitHub, our discourse bot adds links to the relevant discourse discussion in git commits.

Our teams have some guys who are difficult to work with but they've lots of talent. So, we've given them space and time. Sometimes, they do not like to take part in the discussion but it's important that they explain their thought process in Discourse.

This process reduced the time it takes to the onboard new member.

Most of the new members are already familiar with Slack, Discourse and GitHub UI. Search is just good enough, bot makes it easy.

For prioritization, we maintain slim Trello board. We don't use it much.
> If the market is sufficiently liquid, there is pretty-much ALWAYS someone who wants to trade at your price.

Really? Liquid means trading volume right? Not that others are trading as the price that I find reasonable?

Lets say I find paying $10 for a BTC reasonable, no matter how liquid, I cannot get that deal.
See for yourself, I suppose.

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo...

https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

Also, freedom of expression isn't a legally protected concept, it's a societal virtue.
It kind of is, but this architecture has mathematically sound properties and is built in the language so people don't have to reinvent it in an ad-hoc way all the time. Your context object would be a Functor, types are employed to ensure that functions work with these and chaining of such functions is possible via Monads.
It's more like "this... is the correct answer, and it so obviously resonates extensively with everyone else that I feel no need to substantiate any further, other than with an abrupt and final full stop".

To me it sometimes comes across as "you made your comment, I agree, and I'll take the liberty to suggest that it's so obvious and insightful that probably everyone must agree".
> and by no means was I trying to claim anything about my own level of talent.

I did not realize we were talking about you? It is simply that the average figure of $80,000 given earlier represents average. The nature of average means that there will be values that are higher. That is where your top talent lies, mathematically. Average tech people lie at the average.

> Similarly, the quoted piece of your post above reads to me a lot like a thinly veiled ad-hominem

I feel that you may have read too much into my comment. I have no animosity towards you for sharing your point of view, and I am not sure why I ever would. My comment wasn't directed at anyone, especially not you. I was only looking at the situation mathematically, as described above. But, it is the undeniable reality that not all people are equal. Even you recognized that top talent exists. I'm not sure why we would change our tune at this point?

> that the size of the tech job market in Canada can potentially grow in concert with the Canadian tech industry's competitiveness relative to the US, and that the Canadian tech industry's competitiveness can improve relatively as a result of keeping more of its talent from leaking into the US.

I'm just not clear how "if you build it, they will come" applies here. We've built the workforce and the work hasn't come. As a result, people are opting to leave for the US where the work is needed. If the tech industry utilized the top talent, and even the not so top talent, these people would have never left. You might have a good point here, and I am interested in learning about it, but I'm afraid I still haven't quite grasped how you think this would actually play out in the real world.

It remains that Canada produces more tech people than it needs. What else can they do but find work where it is needed? Should they sit around and do nothing while the Canada tech industry someday eventually finds work for them to do?
> I suspect the only reason Chinese is categorized as a single language is ignorance and Eurocentrism.

Ignorance, perhaps, but not necessarily Eurocentrism. Viewing Chinese as a single language – often with Mandarin as a prestige "dialect" of it – is a common position of Han nationalists.

Attempts by some Western linguists to treat the Chinese varieties in a way that emphasizes their mutual unintelligibility and downplays the importance of the common writing system, have even been attacked by said Chinese nationalists as being "anti-China". It is very similar to how, decades ago, many Russians bristled at attempts by foreign scholars to view Ukrainian as a language in its own right, since their position was that Ukrainian and Belarusian are simply some aberrant or low-prestige forms of the Russian language.
apologies if this is a silly question but you said "per bar" a few times. i just checked your spouse's shop and a bar is 1.4oz (38g). That is quite tiny and equals roughly USD18 per 100g. In Europe I am more used to people comparing the 100g price, bar price doesn't matter that much. Is it common to ignore the weight of the bar in such comparisons?
I have always felt that these takes highly overstate how difficult practical part is. It is significatly easier then it is made up to be.

Also, you should not expect even seniors to hit the ground runing, unless you hire on total complete match of both culture, code style and exact libraries being used. In which case you should not be surprised about there being lack of qualified applicants. Even experienced seniors need to learn every single time they change a job and thus also tech stack.

Moreover, many agile companies are basically organized to cater to unexperienced programmer.
> If Rust is significantly slower than C++, it’s a bug.

Safe Rust is significantly slower than C++ when working with pointer based stuff like trees and graphs. That’s why people use unsafe Rust for that kind of code.

> Most of those tools work on Rust as well.

It’s not just tools, also language and libraries.

Rust was designed for safety, and apparently unsafe was just neglected. Or maybe it was a decision to neglect making people use safe Rust instead (BTW same decision was made by Java’s designers at Sun).

In any case, the current state of unsafe Rust is not OK. AFAIK, stable unsafe Rust doesn’t even has malloc & free functions.
You theoretically could, but then you would have a special weird setup that doesn't match 99.9% of the similar installation base of air conditioners on the same island. Making repairs, maintenance and such very costly. You generally want to generate usable AC power from any significant sort of solar system, so that you can use it for more than just air conditioners.
Is it? The"loud pipes save lives" argument seems to be mostly a myth (I can't find any credible research backing it at least).
> 2. For most users, the domain name already leaks in the DNS request, does it not? That is, SNI provides no less security.

This is true, although you can use something like dns-crypt to give you some degree of shielding.

There are two additional benefits to it also:

- your ISP can’t hijack non-existent domains

- you can block IDNs like so: https://flawed.net.nz/2017/07/22/how-and-why-you-should-disa...
If you saw a Russian doing that it would most probably be a sign of hidden negative reaction to whatever you are doing.
> So they combined hoc with ille, which means “that” (but also comes to just mean “he”: compare Spanish el, Italian il, French le, and so on)

Well, I have to disagree on this bit. French for "he" is actually "il"; while "le" is "the".

If you are more interested, "that" would be "ce", or if you want to stress it/be more accurate, "cela" (can be contracted to "ça"), or "celui-là" -- literally "that him there" -- while "this" would be "ceci".
Yeah, lots of words to mean the same, you would usually be fine just picking one.

Interesting read nonetheless.
Ask HN: How do I explain running a non-tech startup on a technical resume?
I've devoted the last 3 years to a non-tech startup. The startup was an organic fertiliser manufacturing unit. Not earning enough money so decided to find a software engineering job in a big tech firm now.

My experience till now: BEng. Computing degree
-> 2 software internships while at uni
-> 3 years for a software company as a software engineer
-> 3 years: startup

How do I convey through my CV that I'm still a competent software engineer despite almost 3 years without coding? Can I improve my current summary/opening bio? It currently says:

About 4 years of experience in full stack web application development. Have worked on 4 product teams with focus on releasing to customers every week. I’ve also led a team of 5 people as a startup founder and mentored employees.
Warren included several gems in this year's annual letter. Below, a small preview:

- discussion about December's tax change (>> The $65 billion gain is nonetheless real – rest assured of that. But only $36 billion came from Berkshire’s operations. The remaining $29 billion was delivered to us in December when Congress rewrote the U.S. Tax Code <<)

- the new GAAP accounting standard that will produce huge quarterly swings in Berkshire reporting in the quarters to come.

- 2017's frenzy in high purchase prices for American enterprises, and the side-effects of using debt to finance them. (>> If Wall Street
analysts or board members urge that brand of CEO to consider possible acquisitions, it’s a bit like telling your ripening
teenager to be sure to have a normal sex life. <<)

- payments made by Berkshire for hurricane insurance.

- strong discouragement to borrow in order to buy stocks (>> the strongest argument I can muster against ever using borrowed money to own stocks.
There is simply no telling how far stocks can fall in a short period. Even if your borrowings are small and your
positions aren’t immediately threatened by the plunging market, your mind may well become rattled by scary headlines
and breathless commentary. And an unsettled mind will not make good decisions. <<)

- details about Warren's bet against hedge funds when compared to S&P indexing.

- risks in owning bonds versus stocks.

Overall, I found the letter to be a useful reading for those passionate about investing or financial self-sustainability.
Just donated to Mozilla. Even if Mozilla wins, Trump's FCC may not enforce it. Its just like how ACA is being enforced in Illinois. Blue Cross is illegally selling insufficient health insurance.
Open an issue on github if you have a feature request!

Star it on github if you like it :)
Show HN: FantasyTote: UK Premier League fantasy betting using Tote based odds
Isn't Harley going to be making the rough equivalent of the Chevy Bolt here?

Unless there are availability or technical problems with all the currently marketed electric bikes.
FWIW, I was recently launching the same Ubuntu live USB stick on 4 different laptops to do some disk maintenance. Out of what you mention none of them had a fingerprint reader and I haven't tested Bluetooth (although I think the icon was there), but everything else that you mention worked out of the box with the single exception of WiFi on one of them (Macbook), which only needed a firmware blob to be added.

And it was Ubuntu 16.10, because that's what I found on some USB stick lying around and was good enough.

From my personal experience, my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro is almost 100% supported - the only thing that's not right is the detection of various keyboard orientation modes (tent mode, presentation mode, tablet mode), so the keyboard and touchpad isn't reliably disabled when it should and the UI isn't notified about laptop/tablet mode switch. Looking forward to 4.16, which apparently carries some fixes in this field.

However, while it worked correctly on the Windows installation which came together with the laptop (until I've removed it an hour later :P), some time later I had to install Windows for a moment, so using the chance I wanted to install all the OEM drivers to see how it works there (of course, out-of-the-box it didn't work at all ;)) but... I couldn't. Seems it's only supported by the installation prepared by the manufacturer (and by its recovery partition), nothing else. Even the automatic screen rotation didn't work - a thing that works reliably on Linux.

While probably "all hardware" is a big stretch, from my experience there's is a big chance that everything actually will work out of the box and it's definitely way better than it was 10 years ago, when for instance I had to install OSS4 and get all apps to play nice with it just to get the sound card on my desktop supported :P
Why You Need to Create Market Disruption to Lead, Succeed, and Prosper
You need to allow everything from twitter and related domains even frames for it to show anything but 0. I was wondering what I missed this time.
The Last Country in the World Where Divorce Is Illegal (2015)
Why are you assuming a linear growth model for it in the first place?
BuckHacker – Amazon S3 Public Bucket Search
https://thebuckhacker.com - Contains a search facility/engine for searching through publicly open Amazon S3 buckets. As mentioned in the past it would seem the original buckhacker isn't coming back online and this version is pretty much exactly the same - give it a go!
> Air travel had immediate, obvious advantages.

And yet, the amount of FUD and ridicule people got for trying to fly was enormous. In hindsight, the advantages of a successful technology are always obvious.

> In contrast, the first decade of crypto currency hype has basically been “you should use your money to make me rich and in return you’ll get to do what you could already do except it’ll cost more and won’t have fraud protection”.

That is not how it was introduced to the world, crypto currency was introduced as a trustless decentralized cash currency no tyrant could ever manipulate to the detriment of the people, the ability to send cash near instantly to anyone across the world without a central authority. If bitcoin becomes successful (not saying it will) at fighting currency manipulation and banking the poor, people like you will say "Crypto currency had immediate, obvious advantages. There were many technical challenges but sending money fast across the world with no intermediary and making currency manipulation by tyrants impossible was an obvious win.".
Ask HN: How do you overcome the problems of task switching?
Hello! I am a software developer and over the years I found that I am extremely unproductive when it comes to finishing one task and then starting another right away. It is best noticeable when I complete something that took me more than one day and then I am guaranteed to not do anything productive for the rest of the last day(doing something for 3.5 days - unproductive for the half of the last day). Same applies to working on side projects. I am focused when I research one problem, implement it, but I have no willpower to continue to the next problem. This affects my career in a bad way and I am sure I am not unique and there are ways to fight it.
Coding a bitcoin exchange is not a trivial task. I think it was a mistake . Even overstock had a major vulnerability that was caused by confusing Bitcoin Cash with Bitcoin
[Growth Case Study] What I think how this indian startup can grow exponentially
Shameless plug: We are building a desktop proxy based on our streaming proxy module for node (node-proxify if you have time to check it out). Funny timing. We are doing a beta release next week (https://secapps.com/appbandit). You might hate the fact that this is yet another electron app but we are adding a tone of useful features which I am sure most people will find very useful in many different tasks. A cli version is also on its way.
To ensure people are charged what they should be? I'm mind boggled that people are so centered on the business that they can't fathom a reason for anything beyond profit or other purely economic factors.

To take this to ridiculousness, we wouldn't stop chasing murderers if we found out that it cost more to chase them than clean up the bodies after. It's because we care about murder beyond its net economic value. And no, I don't care about the specifics of "oh maybe people being more scared of getting murdered will decrease GDP". My point here is that this is a clear case where value is brought beyond economic value. Regulations are often too in this category, though obviously a bit less than law enforcement.
Show HN: A tool for students, parents, schools and educators to find competitions
What other technology has let so many companies embezzle and/or lose $100 million or more within a single year? Crypto currency has a lot of potential; some of that potential is clearly the efficiency with which it can eat investment money.
To me the word you quoted is much stronger than "exactly" or "I agree." The latter two are about the sentiment but the former means something like "This is the best possible phrasing I can imagine: I completely agree and you have captured everything, perfectly." While for a deep discourse (as on HN) --

Oh.

Okay so nevermind. When I started to write this comment I was going to say that here on hacker news it fosters a deeper discourse, but as a poor reader on Reddit reading through 700 comments, do you really want to read the long sentence I just quoted, or are you helped by reading "this", to call your attention upthread.

However I realized that Reddit's 700 comments on each thread are - almost all noise. "This" is a kneejerk one word answer that completely shuts down discourse.

So after actually writing my comment I have switched my opinion. Which itself may well have been due to the style of discourse encouraged here!
Sad Startup Stories
In Europe they're basically Porsche right. You had money to spend and no taste so you got a Harley.
Bitcoin is like faster than air travel for money. Send money to whoever you want no matter the political terrain in between or time of day. Seems like an obvious win. It has fraud protection from the people who claim to give you fraud protection in the old system but then sometimes take your money against your intent.
> If you're making ~$60,000 or more in the US, you are overwhelmingly going to have good health insurance. If you're making $140,000, you're going to have great health insurance. I fail to see how universal healthcare is a lure in this case.

If you get insured.

I think most Europeans are proud to pay taxes to make sure a random fellow living down the street who got cancer can afford his treatments. At least that has been my mentality around taxes for as long as I've lived there.

Sure, taxes don't all go towards nice things :) but at the end of the day I'm proud to be helpful to those who are in need.

Never understood the healthcare system in the US, it just sounds "wrong" to me.
If they are spending 10K on brunch it was good foresight of their ancestors to park the loot in a trust fund, otherwise they would likely end up broke.
I'm using mitmproxy as super easy to setup SSL reverse proxy for local html5 development as many API nowadays require ssl to work.
Eldar Black Holes
People need to read this if it's the one thing they read about this guy.
Then you've probably never had to plan cooling for a server room. BTU's are often the only metric you get from the servers datasheet.
Building an application using VueJS, vue-router, and webpack
It’s not trivial but this is a basic skill which even the most basic industry research would make you aware. It’s like thinking you’re qualified to try surgery because you were pretty good at Operation as a kid.