skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not aware of any systematic analysis. However, my expectations are that we would see relatively constant information density until about a decade ago. The simultaneous increase in available pixels and increase in prevalence of touchscreens has made it possible and in some cases desirable to drastically reduce information density without rendering interfaces immediately unusable. The problem is that touchscreen-oriented design is infecting non-touchscreen software.
> I hate that, if I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs, preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages to a massive advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal life events. Not being on Facebook is sort of like not having a cellphone. Sure, me and a small number of weirdos can opt out, but we are increasingly disadvantaged by it.

This captures perfectly my reasons for getting on Facebook in ~2007. One of my best friends had a baby and I was the only one who didn't know because I wasn't on there. I'd also been one of the last of my friends to get a cellphone 3 years before, and was starting to worry that I was just a jerk about keeping in touch.

It's really interesting to compare those two decisions now. The slider phone I got in 2003 was nothing like what we have today, but buying it let me participate in a communication ecosystem that's still evolving fast.

Facebook feels really stagnant by comparison. Its core mechanics, at least the ones I care about, are unchanged. Everyone's usage of it long ago stagnated into the same patterns. I still check it because I have to for life events, but it's not something I look forward to.
Every website you visit that has a Facebook beacon on it. They collect this even if you're not a Facebook user.
They'll still know where you live, where you work, what devices you use, what places you travel to, what hotels you stay in, what times you're usually awake, who your friends are, which friends you're more interested in, what invitations you respond to, what invitations you ignore, which of your friends are interested in you, what your hobbies and interests are, what texts you send on messenger, what other websites you visit on the internet, ...

Should I go on?
> But at this point, I think Zuckerberg can lay to rest any hope of ever running for office. His opponents now have a lot of material they can cite to show his ethical shortcomings. And the media is going to keep digging for more dirt on Facebook, since it's something that the public can relate to, the majority of them being Facebook users. This issue isn't just going to go away.

I wish this were true. If it were would we have a reality TV star with multiple scandals under his belt? Sad state of affairs. If he did have access to this kind of data, it would give him an unprecedented level of access to private conversations, secrets etc. In a darker timeline, imagine the blackmail/extortion/'leverage' opportunities.
Build it, and they will come!
I did record the details of my trade. What I didn't record was the concurrent status and details of some completely unrelated market on a completely unrelated exchange that establishes some sort of mythical fair market value denominated in USD that so far has no canonical way of being calculated anyway. Nobody can answer the question in any precise way, the IRS guidance on the issue is barebones and not informative at all, and my CPA can't figure it out either. The best we can do is take a best guess that makes it look like I'm not stiffing the IRS.

I want to pay my taxes. I believe crypto should be taxed. But when you get into the situation where well meaning people have to take guesses at what is appropriate, and differences between seemingly simple rules of thumb can result in 20+% disparities in taxes owed, you're gonna have a bad time no matter how diligent you are.
Who watches the watchers?

#1 - There's always a back door. I did some medical records stuff for a while. I looked myself up, just to confirm for myself how trivial it was to do. Yup, there I was. Which is why I insist that all data at rest is encrypted. (I have yet to win this argument.)

#2 - Our "portal" product had access logs for auditing. Plus permissions, consent trees, delegation. The usual features. Alas. We also had a "break the glass" scenario, ostensibly for emergency care, but was more like the happy path. And to my knowledge, during my 6 years, none of our customers ever audited their own logs.

#3 - My SO at the time worked in a hospital and went to another disconnected hospital for care because she knew her coworkers routinely, illegally looked up patient records, and she didn't want them spying on her.
Apple takes two weeks to update a forgotten password?
THAT is a great "today I learned." Citation also below parent comment
Probably because of some of the things that Cambridge Analytica stands accused of, or else things they have blatantly admitted to while being secretly recorded: blackmail and bribery of politicians in multiple countries, hacking election results, and even more unethical acts[1,2].

People are upset that their data was essentially stolen from Facebook (it was collected for use in an academic study, then turned around and sold for profit to CA), used by a company with ethical failures as serious as Cambridge Analytica, and then Facebook buried the story. It was two years before it came to light thanks to Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr.

Facebook also worked closely with CA during the Trump campaign, even though they would have known by that time that data obtained under the pretense of an academic study had been sold to CA.

1. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43528219

2. https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t...
I thought the same a week ago. Nearly bought some FB calls even. But this controversy has surprised me with its staying power.

The real sizzle comes not from the emotional outrage but the calls for government inquiry and potential regulation, which would do structural damage to all of Silicon Valley. This has been a stunningly bipartisan effort, the left supporting it ostensibly because they like regulating big businesses, and the right supporting it because they (perhaps correctly) see Silicon Valley megacorps as adversaries.
You do give up privacy just by having a profile on facebook. It makes it easy to tie your browsing habits to your account, even if you are logged out. See previous discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14694451
So if one were to try taking NMN as a supplement but had no idea which brands were legitimate, what should they do? Go off Amazon reviews? Recommendations anybody?
Don't use the app and they won't know most of that.
Agreed. Furthermore, Facebook doesn't require your work history or any of the other things the author claims is it's blood payment cost of entry. Last I checked it needs a valid email address, name, and password.

I've stripped most of my personal information off Facebook and now just use it as a messaging app and a "find me by name" sort of internet yellow pages thing.
uBlock Origin, Chrome.. no prob
I like it weird. ‍️
EU GDPR compelled this sort of inclusion. If it came out that any data was not included in such a request, Facebook would be hosed to the extent of whole percentages of revenue.
Yeah, still not the same as actually performing breaches themselves to see how long it takes to compromise, and if they get detected and how long it takes to remediate and evict the adversary. I should have been a bit clearer with what I meant initially.
Great set of principles with some good examples. It's worth noting that leveraging third party providers is not fairy dust--choosing that path brings with it constraints and you may have to spend time working around those constraints.

I wish he'd talked more about the four armies and how they played into the choices Intercom has made.
> evil

Hollywood et al popularize the misconception that evil is fantastic and done with intent. Most of the time evil is banal[1]. The larger problems happen when the unremarkable, small deviances from acceptable behavior becomes normalized[2][3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem#The_bana...

[2] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60
The Billionaires vs. BrandonM
You're right, I don't know what actual skill I had in mind there (one are you are no longer trained in but still use). I meant to say, even when a kid is wise to the danger of not taking lessons, they don't know what subjects are best for them or how many different ones must be pursued.
Thanks for taking the time. The missing description is a good point. I will probably add an about section, to avoid the misunderstanding.

Twitter is the dominant source at the moment. Yeah, maybe filtering by source could be useful, just wondering if reddit in this case would be too sparse. I'll try to add more sources, but couldn't find any other good ones so far.
Discovered a litany of amazing startups within the shipping container itself, all sorts of bags, bins, basically things to compartmentalized the space within a shipping container for a variety of things being transported. Huge food grade bags that can transport bulk wine, for example, rigged up safely inside a container.
These are great counterpoints to the view I expressed and does make me reconsider my assumptions somewhat. Thanks!
Is there any language not safer than C++?
I like this, always looking for inspiration. It's also interesting to see the list of famous programmers too. One of my favourites:

"Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight." - Bill Gates
So is Grab going to take over Uber in India?
2. would we an extremely bad law. Even if purely "social" factors will be worked out and we come up with a perfect definition of when and how this should apply — how the fuck do you mean to enforce it? It will make only more trouble and bureaucracy for tech people (I mean actual programmers) with no useful output. Because you cannot realistically enforce it. Data either belongs to somebody, or it doesn't. Either you come up with technological solution for keeping user data secure from anybody including youself (which would be equivalent to not storing it at all, and I'm not sure it's possible for every application), or you make it responsibility of some shady but "reputable" auditors to make sure there's no crime going on, which is a dead end, as even if there's no bribes and conspiracy (which there sure will be), it only passes the responsibility and assumes the end user "trusts" the regulator, the government — well, just "someone else". Which is just silly.

Same applies to 3. at some extent. Only 1. may be assumed reasonably (even though still not "easily", as in practice it will just produce more work for lawyers and accountants) transparent for the public.
Indeed. I came across this, which should probably be of interest to readers in the US:

https://www.ftc.gov/public-statements/2016/01/two-way-street...

However, I seem to recall, that last time I checked (several years ago) there appeared to be very slim data protection in the US. Or rather, somewhat strict rules for the federal government, few or no rules for private business. To the point of federal agencies contracting out databases to firms, so as to dodge legislation...
I can relate to this since I'm an introvert to and don't like social media in general but I do realize that this is how the current generation of society works. If I want to participate in it I have to adapt too.
I totally agree with this. I've spent hours and hours selecting colour palettes that give high contrast (I work on 16 colour terminals because more than 16 colours makes it really difficult to guarantee good contrast in all situations).

Having said that, it's hard to beat black on white for contrast ;-) However, I think one of the reasons people like the monochromatic themes (especially white on black) is the same -- they want high contrast with low brightness. By having the background black, they guarantee a low brightness. And when white is too bright, they go for amber.

I find that by doing the reverse (black on white) and setting my brightness very low (I often go as low at 7%, but more normally 11% back light) I have a very comfortable display with a lot more options. It's really funny, though, because when I have to run software that doesn't follow my colour themes, the computer almost looks like it's turned off. If I'm playing a game, I have to crank up the brightness to 70% or 80% in the same lighting conditions.
> If the reporting requirements seem to be literally impossible to comply with, this doesn’t mean you conclude “so I don’t have to pay taxes”. It means you should conclude “I have to pay the maximum taxes possible under the worst case scenario because I don’t have the records to prove my version of events”.

Shouldn't that be "pay the minimum amount that (1) you can reasonably argue you believe is what you owe, and (2) is close enough to the maximum possible under the worst case scenario that you will not be subject to underpayment penalties if you are audited and they determine you owe the maximum"?
Uber's exit set to tighten Grab's hold in Southeast Asia
Unreal Engine Siren 2018 Lifelike Realtime Graphics Demo (Video)
Personally: I don't care what facebook does with my data - there's nothing very exciting and I have ad blockers so don't even see the ads. It doesn't effect me.

However the Analytica stuff is about conning the masses into voting for Trump and Brexit and that effects me big time and pisses me off somewhat. In face worse that conning - more initing the mob to hatred through lies and bullshit. See for example the Hillary is Satan ad paid for by the russians and targeted with facebook to the kind of people who vote on the basis of that kind of stuff https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/11/02/us/politics/02dc-...
I would certainly pay thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars for certain peoples' archives

Really? For what purpose?
Same. At /maps/timeline it says "Location history is off", so I guess that's something that needs to be enabled.
Android is the same, for several versions now.
No one complained because they acquired user consent to use the data.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-perspec-p...
Wow no way, thanks for the update.
Also don’t let your friends and family use it, block their Pixel, don’t let them buy brokered info on you, don’t let anyone else with Facebook on your WiFi... and do this all perfectly 100% of the time.
Big Data's Data Trap 1: Plato's Allegory of the Cave
There are two major philosophical differences between Google and Apple which led to this outcome.

The first is the difference in business model, i.e. advertising versus whole-product.

The second is that Google starts with a permissive ecosystem mindset and locks stuff down as they go along; Apple starts with a conservative mindset and opens stuff up as they go along. Neither approach is inherently better than the other—the competing platforms are converging towards equilibrium—but Apple's approach does prove to have the upper hand when it comes to consumer privacy.
My own personal "why I hate the ACA"...

In 2016, I decided to take off from work and travel outside the US. I did what I thought was the responsible thing and purchased a travel insurance plan. In total, I was gone for a year...I had an amazing trip.

When I got home, I wanted to sign up for insurance again. But since it wasn't a life event, I wasn't eligible to enroll until the open enrollment period. And when that time rolled around, I wasn't eligible for the subsidized plans because I hadn't gotten a job yet and my monthly salary was $0/mo. Nevermind that I'd done enough contracting work during my trip such that if you divided my annual earnings by 12 to arrive at a monthly earning, it would've easily qualified me for a subsidy to stay on a plan that let me see my previous doctor. But I did eventually get signed up for Medicaid for the month between open enrollment and when I found a job, so...yay?

Then tax time rolls around and, it turns out, you need to be out of the country for 11 out of 12 calendar months to qualify as a non-resident. Since my trip didn't start on Jan 1st, despite being out of the country for an entire year, I didn't qualify as a non-resident for either 2016 or 2017 and had to pay the ACA penalty for the entire time I was gone because I didn't buy health coverage that would've only been useful in a country I wasn't present in. And adding insult to "please don't let me get injured", I had to pay a penalty for the time I was uninsured between when I got home and open enrollment.

In short, I feel like the ACA was rushed and they never seriously considered what was right for people not working a 9-5 job getting regular pay checks. By deciding to opt out of the workforce and do my own thing for a while, even doing it responsibly, the ACA cost me thousands because I somehow managed to find corner cases that were simply not considered or poorly handled by those writing the bill.
It is this weeks viral thing to be outraged about.

I am buying some FB calls in the morning because no one will care about this "movement" in a month.
My proposed regime is somewhat more simple:

All services are opt-in.

If anyone anywhere is charging for (or profiting from) my data, I get my cut.
Is that compatible with the editor OP is talking about? To clarify, that’s what above feedback was for. I don’t understand why people downvote comments without even knowing the context of the conversation.
This is the original essay the author of the 'study' wrote for i09: https://io9.gizmodo.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-choc...

Might be a better source as it contains picture examples of some of the publications.

Notably the article also included additional legitimate research from Roy Morgan that chocolate doesn't increase BMI. The additional (phoney) research that it also reduces weight came from a fake but real seeming "Institute of Diet and Health", which had a real looking website and utilized the legitimate PhD of Harvard Educated Bohannon to sell it.

I'd imagine real companies using this ploy to sell fake research would:

a) not risk fraud charges by setting up a fake institute

b) have to find a real PhD willing to risk their reputation and future credibility on tying their name to a fake study.

What would have been more interesting was if they merely took a real, relatively benign, study on nutrition/health and spun it to something far more than it is, then sold it to some papers. Even using the existing authors (as some companies like Exxon have paid scientists to - not lie - but pump up legitimate studies in their own benefit.

The authors went a step farther by including a completely fake institute which somewhat bothers me.
This is very important to highlight. Mobile has tremendously changed the goal posts in terms of what are acceptable things to do on a system and what violates the privacy of the user, and no one noticed.

Imagine a piece of software in the 2000s that sent all your emails, contacts, etc to a central server when running on your desktop computer, made by a large American company. There would have been utter outrage and legal ramifications.
So you are saying the acceleration of cost went down? It’s bad enough we have to compare health costs on the 2nd derivative. Maybe soon will need to use the 3rd.
DataTables for React: APIs in Phoenix and Rails
GameMaker 3.9.9.5 (2011)
Yeah, you need transport. Historically speaking, this has been a chicken-and-egg problem; to get density high enough for reasonable public transit, it needs to be practical to get by without a car. To get by without a car, you need reasonable public transit. Usually people build transit nobody will use in hopes that people will then build housing.

We've got an opportunity right now in silicon valley to do it the other way around, because ridsharing in silicon valley is so good that it's totally practical for an upper middle class person to live without a car (I got rid of mine about a year ago) - this means that you can talk me into renting a place that doesn't have parking.

Now, hear me out. Yes, I know uber being cheap is temporary, but this presents a unique, i think, opportunity to build housing without parking first, and then generate demand for public transit, rather than the other way around as you suggest. Now, remember that in Silicon Valley, at least, the people who get into new housing are usually well off. If you can afford the rent on a newly built unit, uber is cheap for you, and you have the political power of an upper middle class person.

Build the housing on a rail line; which I think is standard practice, but right now we build housing and a giant parking structure. The opportunity right now is that the rail line is not an alternative to a car, but uber + the rail line is - you can use that to start with the egg rather than the chicken. Build the housing next to transit without car parking spaces, and then let the residents agitate for better public transit once uber starts charging profitable prices.
Well, ad hominem is certainly a logical fallacy, and discrediting the article by discrediting the author is a clear example of it. However, logic is not the only basis in which to challenge an article.

I agree the information is relevant, and I think it's worth people understanding that logical arguments are not the only ones that carry water.
I'm not a fan of Facebook, use it, also happen to be cutting back. You are correct at the minimal set of interactions necessary to be on there. Honestly, the post mentioned sounded more like whining and an excuse for personal lapses -- "don't contact close friends for an extended period of time". If the writer had put a bit more energy into maintaining offline relationships, maybe he would have heard about both events prior to them happening.

edit: cleaning up the grammar
Usually, yes, but it doesn't change your tax liability if you happen to find someone willing to directly trade MSFT for AMZN. The tax exemption for like-kind exchanges only applies in limited circumstances like with real estate.
That $18k was what I was quoted too. Of course no one would believe me.
OmiseGO Is a Sleeping Investment Giant
Thanks for pointing this out. I heard it from a security manager at Google at a conference in 2016. Good to hear that they do breach simulations now, besides regular pen testing and stuff.
Los Angeles Technology News – Tech Insider
> To prevent Obamacare from bankrupting them, insurance companies are resorting to legally dubious mass-denials, one of which affected me personally.

What does the policy has to do with Obamacare? Completely unfair denials obviously happened before the ACA (see: this article), and the idea that Anthem is doing this to stave off bankruptcy is laughable (just see their financials since the ACA was enacted).