skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Agrobot has a better strawberry picking robot in test. [1] Abundant Robotics has an apple picking robot in test. Not yet in production. Getting close, though.

Robotic weeding is now commercially available. Vision systems target the weeds, skipping the wanted plants. The weed is hit with an overdose of fertilizer, a laser, or just a powered hammer. Deere and Siemens both have machines for this.

It's coming soon. A cell phone has enough compute power for this.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/video/agrobot-automates-the-work-of-berr...
MuleSoft did sell itself; that's what an IPO is.

Presumably, there was a reason.
> do they offer solutions to transition (emphasis on transition) from what people currently use to a more open ecosystem?

A comment I made two weeks ago that is pertinent to this discussion:

Niche market software, used by a limited number of highly specialized professionals, is somewhat incompatible with the open source economic model. When a piece of software is used by very many users, and there is a strong overlap with coders or companies capable of coding, say an operating system or a a web server, open sources shines: there is adequate development investment by the power-users, in their regular course of using and adapting the software, that can be redistributed to regular users for free in an open, functional package.
At the other end of the spectrum, when the target audience is comprised of a small number of professionals that don't code, for example advanced graphic or music editors or an engineering toolbox, open source struggles to keep up with proprietary because the economic model is less adequate: each professional would gladly pay, say, $200 each to cover the development costs for a fantastic product they could use forever, but there is a prisoner dilema that your personal $200 donation does not make others pay and does not directly improve your experience. Because the userbase is small and non-software oriented, the occasional contributions from outside are rare, so the project is largely driven by the core authors who lack the resources to compete with proprietary software that can charge $200 per seat. And once the proprietary software becomes entrenched, there is a strong tendency for monopolistic behavior (Adobe) because of the large moat and no opportunity to fork, so people will be asked to pay $1000 per seat every year by the market leader simply because it can.

A solution I'm brainstorming could be a hybrid commercial & open source license with a limited, 5 year period where the software, provided with full source, is commercial and not free to copy (for these markets DRM is not necessary, license terms are enough to dissuade most professionals from making or using a rogue compile with license key verification disabled).

After the 5 year period, the software reverts to an open source hybrid, and anyone can fork it as open source, or publish a commercial derivative with the same time-limited protection. The company developing the software gets a chance to cover it's initial investment and must continue to invest in it to warant the price for the latest non-free release, or somebody else might release another free or cheap derivative starting from a 5-year old release. So the market leader could periodically change and people would only pay to use the most advanced and inovative branch, ensuring that development investment is paid for and then redistributed to everybody else.
That works only with JavaScript active which uMatrix blocks for 3rd party. The sites one visits mainly are not known for 1st party fingerprinting (that's mainly done by the ad networks). The extra paranoids (like me) can also block JS for certain 1st party sites.

I use uMatrix only experimentally (I rely on NoScript) but it offers a fascinating flexibility of control if one is in the mood. As well, NoScript is near useless when doing stuff with AWS where uMatrix offers the right flexibility (allow from site Y, but only when fetched from site X).
If you do ever find a great chat app, let me know as it sounds like our considerations are similar.

I have a few people I chat with that I'd prefer the conversations not be generally available. There's little friction to installing whatever apps we need to get that done.

We want confidentiality, but not inability to do what we want with our own data - as you say, the inability to sync or backup messages is a strong anti-feature. I'm regularly screwing around with software on my phone and don't want to lose all my messages every time I screw around a little too far.

It's okay to tie accounts to phone numbers, but the app shouldn't require (or be an asshole about not allowing) access to things like phone books, SMS, etc. (This is what initially turned me off of Signal.)

Security issues and all, my figuring with Telegram is that at least if anyone it's the Russian government collecting information on me this time instead of the US, China, Google, etc. I'm uninteresting enough that simply spreading it around a little should help in avoiding anyone learning too much about me.
Appreciate the discussion. I think the first point of contention is that, speaking from experience (as a reporter), we have different assumptions about the influence of these PR firms. There's a wide latitude of contact that happens in which the PR firm provides info or clarification. Sometimes the PR firm is the only way to get a formal statement, and this is exactly what Nicole Perlroth asserts:

https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888

> FB PR gave us a statement from Stamos after the first post in which he described the dynamic "as productive." We appended that to our story, while also laying out disagreements.

I'm assuming this was the graf that was added:

> Mr. Stamos joined Facebook from Yahoo in June 2015. He and other Facebook executives, such as Ms. Sandberg, disagreed early on over how proactive the social network should be in policing its own platform, said the people briefed on the matter. In his statement, Mr. Stamos said his relationship with Ms. Sandberg was “productive.”

The other reporter, Sheera Frenkel, adds the specifics that Facebook PR "made no such request" about removing references to Sandberg:

https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296

-----

So what's your rationale, given the complete absence of evidence, such as an inside source -- to distrust the NYT reporters out of hand? Why do you think the benefit of the doubt should be given to the reporter from Law&Crime, who is only making allegations? He's more knowledgeable and trustworthy than the actual reporters who investigated and published this story in the first place?

Maybe it's not clear enough that the Stamos vs. Sandberg story was the result of reporter effort; Stamos's departure (nevermind the reasons and the controversies) was not an official announcement. So I admit my bias that it's hard to believe why we should suspect the NYT reporters of censoring their own story when it's entirely their fault that the story even exists?
Potent 2017 Mexico City earthquake was a rare 'bending' quake, study finds
A lot of coding has already been automated. We don't write programs by manually punching the bits in anymore and programs that once were a major project are now homework exercises for students.

Luckily the demand for programming has so far outstripped any productivity enhancements.
So's everywhere else. If you're gonna be sending the info to some government, why not spread it around a little so everyone only has part of the picture?
It's not like going to the super market. And it depends on more factors than price. E.g. Salesforce's competition status plays a role as well, also whatever the current power struggle between different Salesforce managers, etc.

Usually in a big-enough company the least efficient thing happens instead of the most efficient thing. But the advantage of the big company is that it can play bigger games than your average small company. And if a small company succeeds at playing bigger then you can still buy it. So despite what HR and your manager might tell you, efficiency is not as important for survival.
Japan's older hikikomori live in isolation, shunning society for years
No, because the semantics aren't the same.

CreateProcess() is like posix_spawn(), or if you prefer fork()/exec().

Windows is a thread based OS, not process based, hence why the focus on thread performance, not on process creation.
Murder Robot is a dope metal band name.
You say "big rocket" as if it were trivial to construct a huge bomb that explodes at just the right rate to get you to the moon in one piece.
Thanks. So in this case, how come the woman wasn't identified based on the LIDAR data?
You say that like declaring bankruptcy is painless. That was not the case before George Bush's reforms. It certainly would not become the case again -- lenders' job is to predict this behavior.
Yeah, but when I deny most of those permissions to Telegram it continues to operate exactly as I'd expect (e.g., denying contacts means I need to manually enter anyone I want to contact; when I deny SMS permission I need to manually retype the code I receive in Telegram).

Signal just became broken/a pain in the ass. It's been a while, I just know I couldn't actually get to a point where I could send someone a message without granting it unnecessary permissions so I gave up and uninstalled it.
Wow, that looks awesome! For something at the demonstration-prototype stage in 2013 I'd have hoped they would have something at least in development by now.
This isn't about the sampling theorem, it's a misapplication of compressed sensing.
Being on the government dole in the US is not an outcome anyone would plan for. You're lucky if you can heat your apartment (if you even have your own) and eat processed cheese on what you'd be getting.

Also, many (most?) student debts are less than $25k, and unpayable huge debts should never have been approved in the first place. The latter clause is the whole point of this anyway.
(UK) The new surveillance law requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to the data.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/snoopers-chart...
All people engage in consumption, though — less able people as well as more able people. The issue is, when they aren’t, what are they doing with that capital? This relates not only to how people run a business but also how they engage with civic projects, charities and institutions like schools and universities.

There are marked differences in styles of consumption. Some of the things the Romans did, for example, are simply too destructive and wasteful for our tastes today.

If you’re saying, we can allocate capital not to more or less able people, but in some other way — to institutions or something — well, that’s true; but there still will be capital managed by individuals. When talented, constructive people rise to the top of the heap and run laundromats, computer companies, and other businesses, we are ultimately all better off for it, because those services are (a) available and (b) good. But to run such businesses people do need to accumulate capital.
Content Recipe: Ingredients for a Great Content
Subsidy-free offshore wind farm to be built in the Netherlands
The Critical Path: Optimizing Load Times with the Chrome DevTools – Lucidchart
Old Media ist publishing negative articles about tech at any chance they have, due to them losing all their advertising dollars to online ads. It's just that this time the message finds some traction.
>when they can look up all the personal info and private pics of themselves and their neighbors and friends on some public webserver.

I always thought this webserver is called "facebook", isn't it?
U.S. drops auto-content proposal in NAFTA talks: The Globe and Mail
Good! Lenders should not lend to students whom they do not reasonably believe will be able to pay. Serfdom should be outlawed. Hopefully one day these debts are struck down under the 13th Amendment.
The memory allocation test seems bit out of place, considering that the allocator is provided by libc and not the OS. Testing something like mmap/virtualalloc might have made more sense
Deploying WordPress Application Using Visual Studio Team Services and Azure
Oppose. This is a call for government regulation of speech and association, i.e. the end of Free Speech and Freedom of Assembly in America.
Windows Remote Assistance flaw could be exploited to steal sensitive files
I am a massive proponent of self-driving vehicles for exactly the same reasons you indicated. However, I do a huge reservation: this tech can only peak if it is the only thing on the road.

My outlook on the transition period is not very optimistic. Humans are good at anticipating crazy behavior. Fatalities increasing (before they eventually decrease) is currently just as likely as the promised miracle in my mind - we don't have enough data to sway my mind either direction just yet.
There is a lot of interesting stuff in your review. As a more classic photographer myself, I had some different criticisms but also found the thing about letting others click interact with the focus offputting.

The tech was really interesting to photographers and I absolutely think it could be adopted if built into a reasonable camera design. It’s very normal for photographers to carry many cameras and I knew people to carry Lyros some but I think some of it was that the company had two different users if was designing for, which isn’t usually a problem with cameras but this was so different and novelty that it mattered. I really think if they just made super nerdy products without trying to satisfy the cell phone crowd, they could have built a niche following in photographers.
Easily Fund Open Source Projects with These Platforms
American cockroaches thrive in cities thanks to their long genomes
Dutch to Get World's First Subsidy-Free Offshore Wind Farm
Can you explain what you mean by "liquidity prrference"? My understanding is that you get money in proportion to your vested share at the time of sale
Review: Retro Cameras – The Collector's Guide to Vintage Film Photography
There was a discussion about this yesterday on Reddit:

https://reddit.com/r/java/comments/85t7dt/java_on_docker_wil...
Do you log in to AirBnB using Google credentials? Perhaps they use an undocumented feature to broadcast the dates to GCal without mail harvesting.
Java on Docker will no longer suck: improvements coming in Java 10
It's weird. Almost surreal.

We've known all this stuff for ages.

People say that a lot of what you read is just reporters not understanding what they're talking about, flitting from one subject to another with the herd, and perhaps that's true. But hell, anybody that's paid more than a modicum of attention to this issue should know that BigTech tracks people like lab rats. (Small tech too, they just don't have the user base)

I'm all for getting the word out. It's just an odd way that change is happening. It feels a lot like the internet has turned us all into one big mob, carrying our pitchforks and torches from one outrage to the next. That's probably a problem much bigger than what to do with Google/Facebook/Apple/Amazon/Comcast
She have strong pro-Putin view and tend to ban anyone who dont agree with her, even banned all Russian IPs from Sci-Hub last year because of some political discussions on social networks.

Though this doesn't change the fact project itself is very useful and obviously it's her own personality problems rather than some conspiracy.
"Launching Programs" should use posix_spawn at least on macOS, it's a distinct syscall there and faster than fork + exec.
> Having complicated science underlying a product certainly doesn't excuse a company from producing products that people want.

That's not the biggest obstacle, actually. The biggest obstacle that the sales strategy has no case studies to work with.

What market does the new tech appeal to? Should it be B2C or B2B? (In their case, they tried both IIRC.)

You may hold the collective entity responsible, if you wish, but in this case, they required both sharp and inventive techies (which they had), and a business leader with a vision (which they didn't have). It's not easy to put together, especially if the investors make the call for the CEO's replacement.

An analogy from a different area, Siri could be another dead curio if Steve Jobs didn't decide to make it a centerpiece of their new iPhone.
Because everyone else is going into shorter release cycles.

Java either runs with them, or keeps being the last to add certain features.

Thankfully not all business are crufty enterprise servers running Java 1.4 on Red Hat Enterprise 5.
Not really, the companies would then start asking for the information they want directly from the users. Take for example the quizzes you see posted on your facebook feed. "Find out what kind of potato are you?" and if you wanted to know a user's name, ask a question like, "if one potato year is 10 human years how old are you now?". I mean ask the question disguised as something else, in this case a stupid joke. Ad-blockers alone wont fix this issue. I think its us developers who created this problem and its us devs who has to come up with an answer to this.
Real Office Racing Bike Stunts 3D
Real Office Racing Bike Stunts 3D is new Bike stunts racing game where you play become robot bike driver and perform thrilling stunts with the help of your driving skills. This racing game is full of fun and entertaining. You can drive sports bike as well as Heavy Bike and beat your rival time with the help of super-fast speed.
Isn't that just like the Apple/Google way of telling the users what is right, because the users are not smart like the geniuses they have hired? :)
citation please. I've seen claims that the hosts file on Windows get modified by Microsoft, but that has not been my experience to date, so would like some proof of Microsoft modifying, ignoring the hosts file. Would be extremely pissed to learn this.
I think there’s a different (and to me more interesting) potential, which is to expose the layering to allow creative effects in post. For example you could realistically stick fog into any picture (or remove some amount of fog/haze from pictures that had it to begin with), turn the background monochromatic, add motion blur selectively at particular depths, create focus blur with any bokeh you want, take multiple pictures with the same person in different places and composite them together, etc. etc.

With careful and laborious use of Photoshop it’s possible to do most anything today, but with a light-field image there are a lot of creative controls that could be made easier, faster, and more reliable. (Of course, doing this properly would take hiring some signal processing gurus, color scientists, professional photo retouchers, and interface designers, and spending years on semi-open-ended research.)
> Chipotle had tremendous negative press years ago from food poisoning issues and hasn't recovered since.

Chipotle is an excellent example of how this might affect Facebook.

I think Chipotle could have recovered from this scandal if not for the fact that many people were already less into the 'chain restaurant' thing (in particular 'millennials', I remember reading somewhere).

Of all the people I know, a shockingly small percentage actually uses Facebook actively. And just looking at my FB feed, it's become a ghost town compared to what it used to be. Many have moved to WhatsApp/Telegram/Snapchat/Instagram/etc. for their regular interactions, and mostly use Facebook for overt marketing/self-marketing purposes, if at all (events, business pages, etc.). And there's a surprising amount of grumbling about WhatsApp and Instagram being owned by Facebook, by people who I wouldn't characterize as the 'type' for this kind of grumbling.

The fact that Facebook is still used for some things, and that they own WhatsApp/Instagram might end up saving them, but I still wouldn't be surprised if, similar to the Chipotle situation, this is just that last push that many people need to ditch the FB ecosystem, or at least actively look for alternatives. And so far I get the impression that the WhatsApp/Instagram 'moats' are much more sensitive to disruption than FB is, or used to be.
I guess we can call that the trolley paradox.
ICOClap – Telegram ICO heading towards $1.2B
The article actually says that in this case there is a labour shortage.
I like your point. It's something I've heard the first time
Nope, using Facebook credentials. That's definitely a possibility.

Maybe I'm cynical, but whenever I see qualifiers around a verb I get suspicious. Something like "hey, we're not lying when we said we stopped scanning emails for ad purposes, but we are still scanning to improve other Google ecosystems tools like Calendar".
For reference, here’s the permission dialog from 2010 (https://soundbid.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/fig_03.jpeg). Sharing data and friends lists is not hidden at all.
Your to-do list is how big?
Maybe he likes money?
Are you the author? "We have no idea how to create Original movies anymore ". This is funny. It should be a sequel to tropic thunder. Aptly named.

Well written article btw.
It's not that tracking that finally put the fox among the chickens, it's the use to which the data was put. I think to the extent that most people thought about it at all they assumed that they'd just get more invasive advertising. Maybe the read about a girl's parents finding out she was pregnant or something like that.
You're quite possibly right, but don't underestimate the huge difference between 'some friend telling them about risks' and 'media hysteria'.
As mentioned in the article, the scalpers have hundreds of credit cards, and could buy large amounts of burner phones as well.
Congrats on closing the round! Too bad the story didn’t make it to the front page :-(
LLVM-MCA Will analyse your machine code
Not trivial, but not necessarily the hardest part, and the technology for building big rockets hasn't been lost.
These are the mentioned light field images: https://www.blog.google/products/google-vr/experimenting-lig...

They can only be experienced properly with a positionally tracked VR headset, but they are extremely cool if you have one.
I think its more that what the tech is for the Pixel 2 Super XL edition or Pixel 3. That would let you build a 3d photo and post it to Google Photos. Or maybe they could partner up with a 3D printing company the way you can print photo albums.
Just to clarify, when you say 'diversity' you mean racial/ethnic differences?
My own PC plugged into a dumb TV.
They have a fully working version of it: https://vr.lytro.com/within/hallelujah
I agree and I've mentioned this in the freely readable intro (to make sure people see that before spending money on a book):

Then there's the entire survivorship bias, it assumes that what worked for me will work for you. But it probably won't. Because time has already changed and I will never be able to put on to paper all the variables that have attributed to things than went successful for me. I really don't like to give people false promises. Which is what most other books do. No, this book won't make you successful. That's all up to you.

I'm a strong believer that the majority of success is luck and environment (like upbringing). There's a minority which is attributable to persistence (e.g. forcing luck by continuously trying) and specific techniques (e.g. for me, DIY'ing everything).

Therefore, the only thing this book can offer is 1) learn to be more persistent and 2) specific techniques that MAY work in this current time of indie startups.

I think no static framework will work for anything because the environment rapidly changes, especially in tech. I read a lot of @patio11's posts starting out. And mixed those with my own insights to build stuff. In the same sense as this book I think, only part of @patio11's content was applicable.
Mercedes-Benz joins forces with Google quantum computers research
GDPR and Data Processing Agreements