skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There were casual workers at the last place I worked some had been there 20 year or more. One day (literally on one day) they were all told they were not needed, no severance, no thanks just let go. Disposable human workers.
If COBOL is really as self-documenting as everyone seems to claim, why is it not possible to translate it to some other language and then use that version going forward?
You could also become an embedded dev. Write software for cars or planes, or train, or nuclear power plants. If you want you can work on the same piece of software using the same tooling for your whole career.
I want a "programming language" (or better, a platform) that would natively integrate different services, like Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, Trello, GitHub, Dropbox and so on like they were all in the same machine.
> but you're not talking about "someone," you're talking about your mother.

You are exactly right. Of course I help her with other issues whenever I can. But when an issue comes up again and again and again and it becomes a contentious issue because of the "phone". Not only that, when relatives from abroad want to communicate and they can't because of an app that is failing. The whole thing becomes a more serious issue. Something had to change.

Now there are no problems. In fact, she does more things with this phone than other before. Like facetime-ing, etc. She says it's just so much easier to use than before.
I believe asking to login violates the CAN-SPAM Act. That being said, there might be two links, one for "update commication preference" on top and "unsubscribe" in small text at the bottom. I always ignore the first and seek the latter.
Wrong comparision, totally biasied.

You give them a poor android with 16Go at max, and on the other way give them an iphone with 64Go and yes you can install application on the SD, if you paid for a correct phone.

The phone just works apply the same with Android users regarding Iphone users.
There is not much to complain about, from the consumers' view, in an explicitly opt-in system like this.

The whole thing seems quaintly naive from today's perspective.
I am considering starting an LLC but I live and work in Japan. Do you know somebody who might be able to help me understand what my options are in terms of tax implications (the interaction of having income in both places)? This will be a sole proprietorship.
I don't believe so. I know there is one on the island of Molokai in Hawaii, which I always wanted to visit when I used to live in Honolulu, but otherwise its not a super tourist-friendly place to visit and I opted to visit other islands instead. The Corn Islands, however I highly recommend to anyone!
Oh I see what you mean. Yes, I suppose it is worded that way to impress the reader with the big numbers involved, when many of them can be trivially rejected.
This stuff is the active ingredient in glass "etching cream". Amazingly, many DIY craft videos on YouTube demonstrate it WITHOUT USING GLOVES!
Show HN: Benthos, stream multiplexer and processing service
A not-small percentage of users double click links (and buttons, and anything else that needs clicking).
At 13:45 in this interview with Sergey Brin and Larry Page, you can listen to them discuss the meaning of idempotent on the air with Terry Gross. Pretty amusing thing to hear on NPR. I wonder if the term has ever been mentioned on public radio before or since.

http://www.npr.org/2003/10/14/167643282/google-founders-larr...
Neat article. I am quite old but never touched COBOL (they used Java to teach in Uni). There are so many articles about the failures of transitioning on legacy system to a modern one. Like that British bank going over to a Spanish one (TSB?). Does anyone know of success stories? What were their techniques/strategies?

When I hear about the COBOL line count it always makes me think that someone should write a program that eats COBOL as input and spits out Java/C++/LangDuJour as output. Might make a good company. Mind you, it may already exist, or, be impossible because of some aspect of the COBOL language I don't understand.
When I was a school kid, a friend and I were into blowing stuff up and general chemical mayhem (those innocent pre-9/11 days!). We used to synthesize fuming nitric acid and mix it with oleum and potassium permanganate. The resulting fuming, purple mix would cause pretty much anything it came into contact with to immediately combust.

But that sounds - if you'll pardon the pun - like child's play compared to your boiling(!) nitric, HF and perchloric acid. I cannot image how you'd even contain such an evil substance? And what was it used for?
Whats the language of choice for that? C or would Rust be worth learning? Any pointers for how to get started in that field?
I have one pair of nice headphones. One. The adapter is an inconvenience I don't need. I've had my iPhone 7 for a year and this is still a vexing issue.
Why would they need to recover them from a device at all? Do they not just get chat logs bcc'd to them as a matter of course?
That's all true, but for a phone the writing input might be worth considering. That might be too optimistic though.
> him

I think we're probably talking about national chains here.

I would imagine stores will use the loyalty cards to profile users, and if they've every stored any of the profiling data then this data will be the data you will be getting.
This is an interesting article, if you liked I would reccomend heavily taking a look at Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence. Even though the book has it's own share of problems, it is an interesting approach to Artificial General Intelligence.

On the other points, I would believe this is related to the fact I personally (and I take most here) have spent way too much time on the internet on the past decade(s). I find it amusing the number of times I remember something I've seen or read in the past and how hard it can be to find it again. Or the number of broken links among old blog posts and articles.

Lastly, our lives are way too goddamn short. Thinking that far into the future is hardly productive in my opinion, even if you consider it can be very enlightening.
I had a 16GB iPhone 6 for years, and when I went to upgrade to an iPhone 8 recently, I was upset that the 16GB wasn't an option anymore. I have no need for 64GB of storage (the new minimum on the 8), because my phone is a phone, not a computer.
1. Many more don't. Home stereos typically don't. Regular radios typically don't.

2. Bluetooth is pure crap, the UX for connecting and managing temporary devices is absolutely insane on all devices. This is something you do on your own car but is a major hassle to setup for temporary occasions. And hardly something that is done on a whim just to demo something. It is just that bad.

And this is even before considering compatibility issues and security issues, of which there are plentiful. And cars also have this habit of trying to harvest all your contacts etc. (Wonder how many contacts are floating around in rental cars... sigh)
Please read the decision re B (starting at page 64 of http://src.bna.com/ypI)—if I'm not misreading it, it has nothing to do with work location and the article is confused. But I am not a lawyer and would appreciate your reading if it :)

My guess is that B comes down firmly on the side of Uber/Lyft drivers being employees, unless they can convince a judge that their business is merely "providing an app that lets people find car companies" and not "giving people rides."
Show HN: Profile visualization for GitHub accounts
The problem is that the proposed solution doesn't "count" for the purposes of this experiment, which uses a great circle definition of "straight". The easiest way to visualise a great circle, is to place a piece of string over a globe between your origin and destination and pull it tight, that will track a great circle route between the two (and how a flight flying straight between Europe and the US west coast will take off on an pretty northern bearing, and land on a ditto southern, despite not actually going over the north pole and Europe and the US being located east/west of each other).

If you tried to place the string around Antarctica and pull it tight, it'd slip off in the southern direction, which represents the parent's explanation that you'd be steering south (from a great circle course) to keep straight along a latitude.
Completely mirrors my experience as well. My wife used to have a Note and she would constantly have issues with the phone that I would have to deal with.

Since buying her an iphone 6 years ago, ZERO issues. NO tech support from me. That alone is worth the price of admission. Same with dropbox, I pay the $99/yr gladly because it means my wife isn't asking me about the baby photos and if they're safe in the flash drive in the desk drawer.
No, only Android 6 and later has provided proper user permissions [0] :

> You declare that your app needs a permission by listing the permission in the app manifest and then requesting that the user approve each permission at runtime (on Android 6.0 and higher).

> Beginning with Android 6.0 (API level 23), users can revoke permissions from any app at any time

[0] https://developer.android.com/training/permissions/requestin...
Ok, let's assume this interpretation is correct.

Targeted advertising will require explicit user consent under gdpr since pii is collected. It's fair to assume that there is no big incentive for a user of a website to consent to targeted ads. Targeted ads are usually way way more profitable that contextual ads. If you are a large publisher, would you really want to have your company in the EU in future?
Exporting Litmus Email Analytics Data Feeds to AWS Redshift, Athena and BigQuery
The user isn't going to see the "Oops! I need to undo" button when their email client helps themself behind the scenes.
Nay. TFA correctly identifies the problem.
Start by asking "What is Watson for?"

Watson is for helping decisions at large corporate customers: The CEO has heard of Watson. He saw it on a screen in the VIP tent at the golf tournament, and thinks it's neat. The CIO feels safe with "Watson" in an RFP response from IBM because the CEO thinks it's neat. IBM is happy with this pettifoggery because it keeps the SOW vague and open to maximizing revenue from the project.

It's not about AI.
never mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCOBOL
Funny you mention Waze because they are planning on rolling out real-time suggested stop adverts in Waze now which sounds very similar to what the parent mentioned.
How does the "B" in ABC affect me as someone who does software engineering contracting on the side sometimes for tech firms? I've got a decent network out here in SV, and sometimes a startup facing an urgent deadline will hire me to do some code writing for a couple of weeks. This is work I do outside of my normal 9-5. But now it seems I can't do this without being classified as an employee. That really sucks.
You have to verify the key. In the chat with a friend, tap the three dots menu, View contact, Encryption. You see that the description ends with Tap to verify. Tap. You get a QR code that your friend must scan. Now you know that you're encrypting the messages with your keys and nobody is MITMing you.

You have to do it again when somebody reistalls whatsapp or moves to anothwr phone. If it's you, you have to do it for everyone. Guess why so few people does it.

Also, the GUI does very little to direct people to verify the keys and confirm that the communication channel is safe.
Absent phosphorus questions possible life on other planets
> Pure functions don't work with I/O.

there is a comment above that argue this point in better details.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16966046

Basically it depends on the many nuances you have on "pure", "functions" and "idempotent"
>idempotent

what does this mean
These discussions are not very useful, because they are based anecdotal evidence.

Just to offer a counterpoint: my mother never used a computer and is non-technical, but she manages great with her iPad (she does chat, Facetime, and web browsing). She had a couple of hand down Android phones (IIRC, Moto E, Moto G, and later a Samsung Galaxy Note 4). The Android phones were very confusing to her and she had difficulty contacting anyone while on the go. She recently got an iPhone and she manages without trouble.

The problem is that there are a so many factors: prior experience (my mom used an iPad before), extremely small sample sizes, biases (if you are an iOS fan you like to believe that iDevices work better for your loved ones), etc.

There are only some aspects that we can objectively evaluate (iDevices get security updates for longer periods, iDevices typicaly get more frequent updates). When it comes to usability, you can only get meaningful information from large samples.
What definition of fine are you using?
Over-engineering can only be assessed based on the goals of the project, which he hasn't detailed.
Interesting, quite the contrast. I guess that Gates spoke so freely because this was an internal memo and off the record to the best of his knowledge–and Ballmers is putting on a brave public face. I like how Gates is honest about he knows and what he doesn't know. Funny, back in the day I really really liked eMusic, I wonder if Microsoft ever considered buying them.
I guess the question is whether the companies can allow the drivers enough freedom to make them contractors, while still retaining enough control to maintain service standards. Letting the drivers set their own prices, perhaps through some sort of bidding system, might go a long way.
But `GET(GET(x))` doesn't make sense, in general (and if it did, then you would not expect it to be idempotent), so clearly idempotency in this context is meant to mean side-effect free. They should probably just say side-effect free, though, to avoid the confusion.
Power Consumption of Bitcoin vs. Traditional Currency Systems
Microsoft Wants to Use Generative Adversarial Networks with Discrete Data
forgive my density, but why would you make a web page trigger a toggle when it is loaded? shouldnt there be a button or some other user interaction to initiate the state change?

Is it like loading a web page for the weather- so that when the page is loaded it goes and 'GETS' the latest weather info? Is it for convenience? So that all you have to do is go to a webpage and have it do stuff?
> Unpopular opinion: I hate meta programming

Come to the dark side and start programming Clojure. Because there, meta programming is no different than regular programming -- your macros are just normal Clojure functions that happen to run at compile time, and they have the full language to do whatever you want.
Apple is "better with privacy" because Apple's model is to have you pay for things with your money instead of with your personal data.

If you really have a difficult time distinguishing any difference between Apple's and Google's business models, I don't know how to even begin explaining to you.
I agree. This feels too low tech of a long term solution. Hell, it is pretty much the same idea I had over 20 years ago as a kid when they added vibration to game controllers.

I thought why can't they add this to a suit I wear so I can feel getting shot and what direction it came from.

I don't know if letting a computer hack into my brain to add sensation would be my preferred solution to it, but there has to be a better way.
After reading your comments I can say that the reasons for getting iPhone over an Android are the same as the reasons for getting an Android over iPhone: inconclusive.
Microtype package is pretty great. I want latex to work for me - maybe i am missing something but it always bothered me that i have to mix content with styling. I guess it is great when you are writing something yours and you work on styling and content at the same time. Most of my uscases are unfortunately feeding some text input and spitting pdf.
Hmm. You just agreed with me and then disagreed me :)

Again, I say this as someone who is implementing GDPR for a US-based company, and is also a EU citizen (Irish) and has sat more meetings with various legal groups than I care to remember (again, stress I'm not a lawyer).

It is all about a companies appetite for risk and how tied the are __PHYSICALLY__ to the EU (offices/employees/parent-companies/subsidiaries).

This also gets into areas of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction. Any country can claim this over any other territory they wish. But, for the claim to be effective (except by use of force), it must be agreed either with the legal authority of the country.

Right now there appears to be none. No one is clearly citing any treaty with the EU as giving them this authority.
What? You can completely disable siri, remove almost all apps (excluding phone, clock and stuff like that) and completely disable location tracking. Also, you can use it without logging into icloud, or disable sync.
I have to sleep at least six hours in order to stay alert for the entirety of the following day. Any less results in segments of the day when I'm zoning in and out, though it's not continuous.

Normally I can get an 8-9 hour sleep, sometimes even longer, at the end of the week, so I'd say I'm ok.
I know this is quite unrelated, and based on hazy memory of things from almost 10 years ago, DML statements in databases especially 'insert into' statements are not idempotent as I remember; ie if you try to select a few rows from a table table1 and insert them into table2 with same schema, if there were any identical rows already in table2, then whole insert will fail. My thinking at that time was that if these insert operations were idempotent, then there would be no need to explicitly check for duplicates before the insert.
Just to clarify, as I learned this the other day, it's not about EU citizenship, but about being "in the Union". A resident alien is covered as are vacationers, but only while they are physically in the EU.
Microfocus has a cobol to jvm transpiler.

Issue is that cobol often relies on intricacies of specific mainframes or cobol implementations so it's never quite that simple.

Also a lot of cobol directly interfaces with databases with side effects which makes it ever harder.
Crowdfunding $649,000 with an Open Source 3D Printer
I would really like to know the answer to that ("why"). My most recent experience is with a Motorola Nexus 6 -- worked great for the first couple years after I got it. But recently a lot of things have been really glitchy. For example, Android Auto takes about 15 minutes to come fully alive, find my position, and plot a route when I plug it into my car. And video playback started stuttering bad. And the CPUs were maxed out periodically

I've uninstalled all third-party apps, cleared cache, and that fixed the issues for about a week, then they all came back. Only thing I didn't do is reflash back to factory defaults. Bought a Pixel 2 to replace it, and am wondering how long it will last.

BTW, this has also been the same experience with several family members, mostly with Samsung android phones -- they work great for a couple years, then start slowing down.
To solve affordability crisis, Bay Area housing stock must grow 50% in 20 years
Maybe if you don't have ads on your site, otherwise its going to be a problem.
Great site that summarises GDRP in plain english: https://blog.varonis.com/gdpr-requirements-list-in-plain-eng...
The button I was responding about was an "undo unsubscribe". A bot won't click that button, but may follow a link.
Ask HN: Client hasn't paid the final bill, whats the safest way of withholding?
In essence, my team have a large project that has just entered pilot. The way the billing was structured they paid for 85% of the development that was completed every month, with 15% being held back as a balloon payment upon the first customer being ported to pilot.

The client has migrated around 538 users to pilot and they have yet to pay the final payment.

Realistically speaking they have paid for 85% of the code. The source code is hosted on their AWS account (code commit). So its going to be difficult to withhold source, or even remove code, as they'll have access to the source history.

I suppose that we could stomp the git history. And remove a random 15% but this seems a little brutal. But we're talking close to a six figure bill here.

Anyone been in a similar situation?
leave browser to open the app, search for your site, copy password, go back to the browser, paste password

In the browser, you can tap the share icon and choose 1Password, this will open 1Password and you can confirm the entry to log in.
See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16966621 ; I think B is misreported here. It's about type of work, not place of work.

That said, my (non-lawyer, pre-coffee) reading of what B actually says is that while it won't turn consultants into employees of the place they consult for, it will turn specialists into employees, whether or not they work on site. If a company occasionally submits patches to an open-source project they use, and then they hire a maintainer full-time for a few months, that sounds like B would require them to hire the maintainer as an employee.
...and you can't charge the damn thing while using the headphones... what the hell?
> There is not multiple ways of doing things (at a presentation level).

Love the insight. Established businesses like banks look for this kind of stability. And upstarts who build from ground up to challenge status quo, they go on to figure out ways to win with es6 and their friends.
Almost every modern car now has USB or bluetooth, even cheap entry level compact cars.

> Friends car? Stereo in the summer vacation house?

Bluetooth speakers are pretty much ubiquitous nowadays. I don't think I've seen an aux cord in 2 years.

Why should a tech company design for old tech? Do you also dislike monitors that don't have VGA just in case? I'm not saying there are scenarios where that would be an issue. But I think you overestimate the issues and most people really don't care.
Towards a  Global  Artificial Intelligence Charter (Thomas Metzinger) [pdf]
All evidence of hard-g GIF to the contrary...

https://gizmodo.com/the-creator-of-the-gif-says-its-pronounc...
> gdpr required explicit checking a box until the service can be provided

You don't need opt-in for things that are essential to providing the service. You need that for non-essential data storage and sharing. Unless you want to make providing your service conditional on extra collection, what you describe shouldn't be necessary.
It was also a very soft H, almost like gray-ahm
The Censor’s Hand – IRBs Considered Harmful
تحميل لعبة جاتا Gta 2018 للكمبيوتر وللاندرويد مجانا
Show HN: Hydra Shower Rod
Phenol... ah, the nostalgia. As a teenager, I once added a drop of fuming nitric acid to some phenol. I understood that I may be able to make picric acid that way. I just didn't appreciate quite how unstable the resulting compound would be until the instant the acid hit the phenol and the glass beaker disappeared in the resulting detonation. I was not wearing googles (of course), and to this day I am thankful no glass hit my eyes. I'm also extremely thankful I only added a single drop of acid. Scary substances indeed!
That's absolutely insane. How long did it take?
At least in MySQL you can use “ON DUPLICATE KEY” to either ignore such things or optionally execute an update statement to change something about the matching row.

There is also REPLACE INTO

Assuming you have a relevant unique key setup of course.