skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
While most people forget to mention when discussing the Phoebus cartel is that with incandescent lightbulbs, lifespan and efficiency are inversely correlated.

It is actually quite simple: incandescent lightbulbs are blackbody radiators. Efficiency depends only on the temperature of the filament, the hotter the better, but lifespan decreases drastically as temperature increases.

There isn't much that can be done in an incandescent light bulb. The filament is tungsten, voltage is fixed by the grid, power is the rated power. So, the only choice is to make the filament longer/thinker or shorter/thinner. The former will be dimmer and longer lasting compared to the latter.

Requiring a set lifespan also ensures consistent brightness and color temperature (a real temperature in this case), it also requires reasonably precise manufacturing. These are generally good things.

Well obviously, a lot of it is motivated by profit, but there are also very good technical reasons behind it too.

The situation today with LED lighting is actually much worse. LEDs could last a lifetime, unlike with incandescent light bulbs, there is no reason for them to burn. However, a lot of them fail because they are under-engineered.
That’s probably why Arizona is the test bed right now. Predictable weather patterns, long stretches of flat, open roads, low traffic, and legislative openness. optimizing 80/20
Article is paywalled for me.

I would only add that I would be interested if they offer virtual account numbers like CitiBank does, so that online retailers get a CC specific to them and a spending cap.
Show HN: Foursquare data scraper that gathers all venues within geographic area
> How disappointing that text editors require such... abstraction.

Why would you think there's no need for sophistication in text editors? They're used to do a lot of complicated things.
I have used ngrok to make my laptop work as a production server when I was user testing https://github.com/zitterbewegung/mms2text . I setup twilio to point to the url provided by ngrok. I just left my laptop home and I got people to test the app. Eventually I set it up on AWS but it chugged away fine on my laptop (Macbook Pro TB 13 inch).
The Massachusetts state crime lab is an actual madhouse, and the state government is shockingly corrupt. The following article is one of the more detailed descriptions of how the lab scandals were managed

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/did-falsified-drug...
accredited labs already have to do some of that. the organizations chosen (college of american pathologists, for example) to administer the tests are fucking garbage.

so it's a bit harder to get this kind of validation going than just deciding to test the labs.

> ...a mix of a bunch of known negative samples (from individuals completely unrelated to the crime in question)

haaah. you have no idea how many people are on something. getting known blank samples is nontrivial.

> Although this simple, effective, and cheap method would completely transform forensic practice, it will not be implemented. The reason is incentives. The parties involved in forensics are the police or prosecutors and the labs. Both have an incentive to identify the guilty.

there are independent labs that work for prosecution, defense, civil cases, etc etc every form of case you can imagine, and basically throw away all case information for the middle part of the testing process, so the folks who could hypothetically swing things one way or the other don't even know which way they'd be throwing cases if they tampered with it.
Yes, operating a Hall or ion thruster on O2 and/or N2 is not new (and Busek was not the only one that did it either).

And it is definitely hard, but this is just part of the problem.

The really tricky thing is to get the whole system working. For instance it is not longer possible to use a "high pressure" (relatively speaking of course) propellant feed. Even with the passive compression stage discussed in the article, an off-the-shelf thruster wouldn't be able to operate due to the low inlet pressure.

Also, the intake/collector design is a problem of its own. AFAIK this was the first real-life test for the passive intake concept (the theory of operation and trade-off to be considered are discussed here [1]).

That being said there is still a long way to go before this can work in space...

[1] http://erps.spacegrant.org/uploads/images/2015Presentations/...
Monad Tutorials for Other Topics
Announcing log processing and analytics in Datadog
Corrective training for the wrong person. Every time I hear a case like this, I'm reminded that when something like this goes wrong, it's usually the fault of something that failed prior to getting to this stage. The problem isn't that this person pressed the wrong button. The problem is that the wrong button was allowed to be pushed in the first place.
All this does is scare me. I honestly hope I die before I have to retire, because there's no way I'm going to have saved enough money to live off of, even modestly, and no way I'm going to remain sharp enough to continue earning through and beyond my 60s.
This reminds me of the Italian cold fusion guy that was in the news a while ago. What happened to him?
To me, the article is more about the delusion of how productive some people think they are. It's one thing to know that you really put out 2-3 hours of good code and be satisfied with it. It's another to think I've worked 10 hours a day while being distracted by Slack and surfing the web.

The best take away for me is to have a good measure of productivity and I think 'pausing the CD is a great idea.'
This assumes that we don't create such elements as a by-product of fusion or other processes that we develop in parallel with the technology advances required to bring significant industry outside earth's gravity well.
People who have looked at particular instances of fusion-powered ramjets have found that they don't produce enough thrust to overcome drag:

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

More recent thinking on the concept has centered around magsails which turn the drag into a good thing. Decelerating a starship is an even tougher problem than accelerating one, and magsails are a great choice for that. (And might even be able to get a speed of 0.2% of light for departure on the solar wind)
What does VR reveal about the 4th dimension?
I was going to joke it's about medium sized things but size is not a reasonable distinction (neither absolute size nor number of "parts") and you quickly run into the problem how organisations (i.e. groups of humans acting together) or machines (e.g. a car) are fundamentally different.

I guess the definition really is pretty fuzzy and arbitrary. It's "obvious" why a bunny is biology and a car or company is not, but it's not quite so obvious why a virus or an android isn't.

Heck, xenobiology seems to be inherently problematic because alien life would defy all classification. Imagine the "xenomorph" from the Alien universe. Would that be considered a reptile? Is it even a vertebrate? What animal rights legislation would apply to it if any? Would a "grey" count as a person? We like to justify these laws with biological categories but what do we do when faced with situations where the categories break down?

EDIT: Is an artificial, viable sheep-human hybrid an animal or a human?
Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes.

This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if you allow me to explain such disease bluntly, here it is: the Brazilian voter is astonishingly stupid. Brazilians vote very, very badly. Politicians with a long and explicit history of corruption are routinely re-elected and remain very popular (e.g: Maluf, Sarney, Calheiros, Collor, Lula and almost everyone in the 3 big parties: PMDB, PSDB and PT).

There is even a standard justification for this behaviour, people say "rouba mas faz" (he steals but gets things done).

Like in most of the 3rd world and countries with authoritarian history, the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. I bet Turkey, Russia, Poland and Hungary are the same. Democracy goes far beyond the formal institutions, you need a civic heart, a belief within every citizen's mind that the public good matters a lot and affects everyone. In most 3rd world countries people just don't "get" this.
You can save money by decreasing your savings every month instead of contributing a fixed amount. I've never seen an investment calculator or vehicle that allows for such a plan.
Why Did the FBI Arrest the Hacker Who Stopped the WannaCry Attack?
I think it's asking how much you've saved for retirement, not what your net worth is.
Proxy firm Glass Lewis opposes Tesla's massive stock award to Musk
Yea, every industry makes this claim and it either means that no one wants to do the job because it is harmful or doesn't pay well enough. I don't think it is a good counter argument to the automation of one of the largest industries that employ people in the United States. Even if you take the claim that it won't impact jobs you have to look at other people in the ecosystem and how their jobs will be impacted (automated trucks don't need to eat or sleep and that means those truck stops will stop existing).
Nice to see your income rise so much just before you die and a lawyer gives it all away. Alas “the old have the means but no mobility, and the young have the mobility but no means”
Yup. They do a lot of damage by helping people after natural calamities.
many of the government labs won't take samples from private parties, and the ones that do frequently don't advertise the fact.

the private labs, sure, you could spike (or not) some blood samples and pay for them to be tested.
Free website monitoring service
I feel like they re-invented the train. :-)
Looks really nice and polished, thanks for sharing!

Sorry for asking, but what exactly does the icon of the bag with money in the diagram indicate?
To be more accurate, they don't work up to the standard we require for legal evidence and, with some practice, can be defeated.
The pros you get are a luxury, while the cons are an infringement on our privacy.

We're at the point where you sharing your data harms everyone else. For example, if there are 1000 people in a population and 999 willing share all data on themselves, the last holdout doesn't need to offer his data. They can already derive it from based on everyone else's.
WordPress now powers 30% of all websites
Can the history teach us anything here? What had happened when the technology called "China" became available? How did it affect jobs elimination?
New “Android Go” phones show how much you can get for $100
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I'm not sure how this calculates the investment savings but I hope it is right!

Says starting with 300k and saving 500/mo I'll have $2.4mil in 20 years...
anecdotal, but each summer I spend time at a hotel in the Austintown/Youngstown area which is a drop off point for newly "graduated" students from a trucking school.

the old timers are there too and some are there to pick up their partner as many long distance services have two drivers per cab. the old timers are a great source of information and if anything stands out its how many new drivers don't cut it. most leave on their own but others are pushed out for not being good drivers. good means not only a safe driver but properly courteous to everyone you meet.

quite a few get into it on the storied romance aspect of it, those stories that convey that there is something special in it, one with the road, etc. others because they don't understand the complexity of the job. it is not just driving.

so I am really curious how much work moves to dock yards and better yet, what processes are being put in place to handle all the interaction with local enforcement agencies because truth be told there are parts of this country where the locals stop trucks fishing for something to ticket and generate revenue on. how will self driving, no one aboard, eventually be handled?
Arch or Antergos (Arch with an easy installer)

It's not hard to install Arch but it takes slightly more effort than many of the mainstream distro's. The benefit is a powerful, fully customisable distro. It's documentation and package repo's are best of the best.

Antergos makes it quick (why I sometimes use it) to install and slightly easier for completely new users.

I have been on Arch based distro's for about 10 years and I wouldn't change. I have regularly reviewed other distro's but they all have things that "just work" in Arch but don't for them.

I generally use it on Thinkpad laptops and power settings and back lights (etc) all just work.
There are things you shouldn't do because they're plainly unethical.

There are also things that are ethically fine, but maybe your boss' boss, or some other department, or the customer, might not like. In those cases, it can be a good idea to document that you didn't come up with this on your own.
English speaking ability is pretty good and widespread in Portugal. In Spain, however, it's the opposite.
It's worth pointing out that monkeys are usually fed more than just the chow. However, since the chow is "complete", it is less important to carefully monitor the balance of fruits, nuts, etc. to make sure that they're getting enough of every vitamin (etc).
Do you know of any source for a full size one that could run on natural gas? Like you said, looks like they are all quite a bit smaller (or huge industrial systems). I do dislike the noise of refrigerators and if my current one fails I would like to try a gas powered replacement. Also, natural gas in California is way cheaper per unit of energy than electricity (thanks to Enron and other factors). A gas frig could be cheaper to run than electric here.
The standards we expect for childrearing are also dramatically higher today than ever before.

Previous generations just sent the kids off to play after school, without much attention; they expected kids to be 100% on their own after highschool (and even before); and on and on.

Today we expect far more parent involvement than ever before (at least in the US), this makes it comparatively more expensive to raise children now than in years past.
Hodor: Controlling the office door from Slack
Sure you could put reified generics in there, but what would you use them for if you didn't have reflection?
Leap.ai to instantly match job-seekers with employers with just a few questions
It's a bit bland compared to what Eduardo Cunha could pull in, but then Cunha didn't get his money by sending a receipt to be reimbursed.

The problem is more that this sort of data isn't likely to find the serious corruption, it'll likely just find pedestrian examples of misuse of public funds.
"Jobs for women are higher-paying and more satisfying than ever before, and that raises the opportunity cost of having large families"

This is not true. Depending on the wife for income prevents her from focusing on having a large family. Without the assistance of a grandparent or some expensive nanny, this tends to limit the number of children in the family to 2 or 3.

Also, women working has driven the price of houses up, so it's difficult to get by with one working parent now. Women have less of a choice to work now, and more of an obligation.

This doubling of eligible workers also drives down the salary of everyone, making men pull in less money, further forcing women to work whether they want to or not.

Not to mention how expensive large vans/suvs are to actually drive them around.
Ask HN: Old hackers, what's it like there?
I'm looking to hear stories from old (completely subjective and I hope not an impolitically correct term, I'm not from the US) programmers/hackers. Did you transition out of programming at some point or do you still find time a few days a month to code? I personally would like to not quit coding when I grow older, I still want the ability to create my own tools/systems for me or other people to use. But life changes so I can't guarantee things. Any answer is okay, I would just like to hear some learnings/stories, because I don't know a programmer over 40 in real life.
I'd expect they'll make potholes much worse, with all trucks driving exactly over the same spot repeatedly, until they learn to avoid the pothole. Perhaps Waze-style reporting will fill the gap.
You're right -- it's better than I thought, though it's still in the middle of the pack when measured by track per person or track per area:

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

I guess I'm biased by seeing all the abandoned rail, since it's well down from its peak.
The rate of change matters far more than the amount of it.

https://ourworldindata.org/employment-in-agriculture
For Women and Minorities to Get Ahead, Managers Must Assign Work Fairly
Since this is a retirement calculator I assume it’s asking about your retirement fund.
> IE pretty much ushered in the era of truly dynamic websites.

I'd call that inferior, not superior: it's what destroyed the web as a document-viewing platform and turned it into the modern privacy-destroying, JavaScript-laden application-deployment platform we have today. Every time I see a blurry image, every time I have to enable scripts to view text & images — I can blame IE.

> Also, I'm generally finding Edge on Android a better experience than Chrome on Android

Firefox on Android is also cool, and free software to boot.
Actually it is very relevant for JavaScript at Google, given Closure Compiler. Most of our JS apps are type checked, code split and optimized and Bazel is how we structure the module dependencies. The Bazel build rules define independent logical modules, and build processes prune unused dependencies, and calculate a dependency graph which is used to organize an optimal module structure, this is then used by Closure Compiler’s CrossModuleCodeMotion to further reduce size by moving methods and properties down to later modules.

Granted, JS isn’t incrementally built, but the dependency graph pruning (removing unused files from the build that aren’t imported or referenced in JS code) is parallelizable.
So viruses are data but living things are code. Viruses are just malicious data that exploits unintended behavior of the code to replicate itself. Of course all code is just data.

It's similar to how it's difficult to argue whether a data format is a programming language (Turing completeness is an obvious but unnecessary and insufficient distinction). "Declarative programming languages" muddy the waters but most people would agree that a JPEG image is just data whereas a PHP script is a program.
Yes, ballistic fingerprinting was just brought up as an example.
list.toArray() is only a problem in Java because arrays aren't erased. Mixing erasure and non-erasure in the same language is a problem, but it's not a problem with erasure.
There's two crucial questions left unexplained by your comment: what do you mean by 'living', and why does a legal entity fit that notion of living?
Dirac: The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature (1963)
Yeah, just things that aren't optimized yet.
Windows headers, etc have very different hot spots and need different paths to be fast than linux/mac ones.

For reference, in distributed builds, the build times are ridiculously faster using clang.
(it shaves many hours off the time).
What if we could use the notion of entropy in a definition of life?

Living things use energy to prevent entropy (decay?) while they are alive.

On the other hand, natural, non-living processes do no such thing, and increase entropy as governed by the law of thermodynamics.

We could also use criteria such as growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. However, crystalline structures also grow and chemical processes may produce more of a certain molecule. All of those seek some energy minimizing equilibrium without any mitigating mechanisms.
Few Versatile vs. Many Specialized Collections: Designing Collection Libraries
yes, could easily have been the latter
Without the rails.
France may probe Google and Facebook over online ad dominance
These things are always a bit depressing and make me want to invest in a bottle of bourbon.
You have to apply for a job to find out
Social Media Use 2018: Demographics and Statistics
While it's nice to hear those anecdotes it still proves nothing. As OP said, this is survivor bias.
> win32 API's are generally exposed as C

A lot of newer Win32 APIs are IUnknown-based COM interfaces. APIs that are probably relevant for Chrome are shell interop, drag & drop, Direct2D, Direct Write, Media Foundation.
Spotify scam: Did a Bulgarian playlister swindle their way to a fortune?
Everything[0] has a physical manifestation. A computer program has a physical manifestation on its storage medium.

[0]: Let's not argue about whether it makes sense to say that abstract concepts also have a physical manifestation. Programs are concrete expressions encoded on a physical medium (whether using magnets, electrical charges or even the position of mechanical switches).
Ion engines also only typically ignite in a near vacuum as well. You would need HUGE voltages to do the same thing in the (main part of the) atmosphere.
Its been an interesting change over the last decade. Programmer oriented forums used to be all about becoming a super coder. Now inevitably 50% of the time there will be a comment saying, "You know you really could get away with caring less". I suppose that's true - but then why even read the article.
So, as the person responsible for deciding to make just about all of the compiler switches happen (and i used to run opensource licensing for Google), this is just coincidence[1].

In this case, we just felt clang/llvm was a better architecture to build on at this point. These are also many-year projects.

I was a GCC/gdb/etc maintainer for many years, so i've got nothing against GPL software.

[1] Well, part of it is that by numbers, most newer open source projects are not GPL. The percent of GPL'd new projects before, say, 2010 and after 2010 is very different. I haven't gone far back to see when that starts, but the percentages are quite significant. It used to be 40-50% of new projects, and now it's like 10-20, maybe.
Show HN: Cloud Native Interactive Landscape
https://landscape.cncf.io/

CNCF's static Cloud Native Landscape [0] is an overview of cloud native projects, but it's too hard to learn more about each of them.

https://landscape.cncf.io/ is a new interactive tool we built for investigating projects and products in the cloud native ecosystem. All data originates from a YAML file [1] which is then enriched with data from Crunchbase, GitHub and Yahoo Finance. One fun aspect of the app is that it is "serverless"; the JSON is served as a static file and then all filtering, sorting and grouping occurs locally in your browser.

[0] https://github.com/cncf/landscape#current-version
[1] https://github.com/cncf/landscape/blob/master/landscape.yml
Pay off a modest $100k house in a low cost of living area and you should be able to survive on Social Security alone.

Save more if you can though.
How LibreOffice and TDF are helping other open source projects
Reminds me of the CBM BASIC bug where you would get weird behaviour (rather than SYNTAX ERROR) if you entered line numbers that didn't fit in 16 bits, but whose first five digits matched a number in the $8900-$89ff range.
Foreign workers can now get health insurance abroad with this new startup