skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
like most social things, it depends heavily on context. if you're a software dev and you start talking shop with another dev, it's probably a safe topic of conversation, unless the person really doesn't want to talk about work after hours.

unfortunately there is a lot of baggage wrapped up in one's occupation (social status, money, etc.). if, as a software dev, you start asking someone who works at a pizza place all kinds of questions about their work, it could be a very different dynamic.

btw, i used to work in a pizza place and i had devised all kinds of strategies to optimize every aspect of my job. i loved when people would give me the opportunity to talk about it, but i know a lot of my coworkers were very unsatisfied with their job and place in the world, and would not be happy to be asked about it by someone who obviously made a lot more money.
Thank you. I wasn't sure if you were asking something, I think it's a 'mini-rant'. Immune to surprise doesn't sound normal/common. So..how would you prefer things were? You don't like how things are, (I think), can you imagine and describe a better situation?
And I'm saying that is, in and of itself, a huge problem. To be blunt, if you require a shifter in order to stay engaged while operating a two ton hunk of metal, you have no business being behind the wheel in the first place.
The high price of those camels is, oddly, tied to oil riches.
Yeah but that's the Firebase Messaging System, AKA Google Cloud Messaging, which doesn't exist in your phone if you flash a AOSP ROM.

Of course, for maximum privacy, an open source with minimal blobs ROM like Replicant would be much better. Shame 2011 era hardware in mobile land is so much relatively inferior to laptop land (e.g. X200 with Libreboot)

Again, you can't do this in Windows 10. The telemetry and "add-in apps" get installed again periodically after updates [0] last I checked

[0] https://www.resetera.com/threads/windows-10-keeps-reinstalli...
I wonder what language they used to write it.
Sure, here is a trivial example of the concept. Let's say you have a system of comments like you do here on HN with upvotes and users and topics. Let's pretend that system just runs "open loop" as it were and things are posted and up voted and down voted and commented on.

The operation of the system leaves behind a trail of its activity (some explicit like new comments, some implicit like karma changes). Collectively this data set is the "exhaust" or "wake" (in the sense of a boat wake that shows up when a boat passes by) of the system running.

A machine learning system can process that data set and make predictions about future behavior of the system. People do this all the time to predict things like "when is the best time to post" "what happens when something makes the front page" etc. Internally predictions can be made about vote fraud or spam or what have you.

You can use machine learning in an active feedback mode where its predictive outputs can then be tied to administrative controls to achieve a desired improvement.

Let's say you wanted to remove the 'front page bias' of articles posted at a particular time. If you have a tool for boosting or demoting stories in a fairly fine grained way, and you can deduce the natural tendency of stories based on submission time to reach the front page, you can have your code 'boost' stories that are submitted during "weak" times and 'attenuate' stories that are submitted during "strong" times. The effect on the system is surfacing a wider variety of stories and a better user experience (for readers at least).

At the meta level, this is no different than control system theory with an error amplifier and a summation amplifier tied into a feedback loop. But Machine Learning brings with it the ability to characterize, and base feedback on, variables that aren't really visible to people nor completely independent.

Coding the variables, their interrelationships and their impact on the output is a time consuming and non-economic thing to do, so it isn't done. But with machine learning, the ability to do that analysis algorithmically and just train for the outputs of interest, is quite inexpensive.

Makes it a very powerful hammer in everything from language translation to truck load planning to autonomous driving.
Most people seem to think we are just one more law away from creating Utopia.
Brad Pitt built homes in New Orleans after Katrina. Now they're falling apart
I guess having the app update itself may have some appeal for LTS and enterprise distros, where you cannot get the latest-greatest release from the distro vendor. On something like Arch Linux, it's pretty pointless and actually counter-productive: By the time, the package lands in the stable channel of the distro, you know that it works well with all your system libraries because someone tested it.
I spoke about this phenominon before. If they remove it from the store; they remove your entitlement.

https://blog.dijit.sh/importance-of-self-hosted-backups
...their disastrous human rights record in Yemen.

"Their"? That should be "our". Every bomb and bullet says "Made in USA", and has since 2015. Oh and of course we've also had troops there since then as well. Who in either branch of the mainstream party do we expect to pressure KSA about the atrocities in Yemen? How about the media? Oh, wait:

https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MSNBC-Yemen-Dani...
The article does mention the recursive nature of theory of mind like you note.
[Mac] Programmers Day Bundle: Workspaces, TeaCode and Expressions. OVER 75% OFF
My point is that there is no immediate need to cancel anything if you are moving.
That speaks of consolidation and yearly refresh not innovation. A yearly adding of stuff because they have to not because they have the next great idea. Stuff that doesn't just work together like it used to, nor feel as slick. I honestly can't remember the last iOS or MacOS update that brought anything really compelling, and High Sierra brought a new low for stability.

iMac Pro comes after a year or two of widespread criticism after the "can't innovate my ass" trashcan farce. For that money I would want a cheese grater with slots and expansion not an all-in-one that seems fine for regular iMac prices. Airpods are hardly ground breaking. HomePod was joining in because everyone else was. iPhone X is bigger, faster with a notch that speaks of kludge not innovation.
Siri is a much better assistant then Alexa. It’s a hands down better product with much better tech. Things I say to alexa have to be in an exact phrase, whereas Siri can pick up on multiple different phrases containing the same meaning
That was my conclusion, too. The personal economics and the carbon footprint correlate surprisingly strongly. The CO2 costs of hybrids look attractive on a 5-6 year timescale, but it gets bad when the environmental costs of a new set of batteries get factored in. People underestimate the various costs of the vehicle itself, and how they look over a longer haul.

I just threw in the towel on my 20 year old vehicle for a new small gasoline engine car. I figure my odds of getting >12 years out of this vehicle are quite high.

Maybe the picture will be very different in 10 years, with improvements to battery technology. But today I stayed away from the hybrids and electric vehicles, for both fiscal and environmental reasons.
This seems like needlessly trying to take an inch. Apple says statements which the average person with a fully array of facts would call untrue i.e. a lie.

The fact that a lawyer somewhere can find a loophole or just enough edge for doubt, doesn't within itself disprove that. It is common tongue, common sense, a lie, a untruth, factually incorrect, etc.
I know, everybody forgets the time Apple held a whole Jobs+ press event to unveil...an iPod dock.
Chargepoint would definitely pick them up if none of the other manufacturers did.
EU climate law could cause deforestation
>> Who knows what's actually happening.

What's actually happening is executives are leaving. Many more of them than is normal in such a short time. That's what's actually happening.

Why that's happening is certainly open for debate, but there are no answers to "why" that are good. The only reason that wouldn't suck is that it's just a coincidence that they don't want to be there. But keep in mind, one of the finance people was new to the company and quit. To me that says they walked in, saw what was happening and said "yeah, sorry, no." But that's speculation on my part. We should stick to the facts - an unusual number of executives have been leaving the company in a short time.
100+ Cool New iOS 12 Features You Didn't Know About
Many things could, but won't go wrong... Purchasing or Licensing will offer protection to all cofounders including the ones that are turning over their rights to the IP.
Trakstar (https://www.trakstar.com) | Front-end Engineer | Seattle, WA | Full-time | ONSITE or REMOTE

Trakstar is looking for an experienced and versatile developer to join us and become our front-end expert. We build tools that truly up-level performance for organizations all around the world. Our rapidly growing customer base consists of over 135k users and 1,200 organizations.

Our stack: Ruby on Rails, Postgres, React, Backbone/jQuery, JavaScript/HTML/CSS. We're looking to continue modernizing our front-end with React.

To apply, visit:

https://trakstar.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0fuud?source=hacker...
Wow, when I hear about perverse incentives, I don't usually think about people spending their lives showing their clients a taste of a possible future until a high enough reward gets them to stop caring. Reward hacking for humans.
The gist of what's being said on this post and the thread on Apple's video is that everyone is generally around the same size for various features. So we might get marketing speak that we're on "10nm" or "7nm" or "5nm", but that doesn't correlate to much. Just like "4G" and "5G" technically mean something, that doesn't mean the carrier offers speeds remotely close to the specification they say they provide.

Features lists generally include the transistor gate pitch, interconnect pitch, transistor fin pitch, and transistor fin height. None of these features are actually "10nm" or "7nm, but range anywhere between 30nm-60nm. Although sources are conflicting online, it looks like Intel 10nm is about on par with TSMC 7nm. Some features for Intel's 10nm are larger, while others are smaller than TSMC 7nm. Also _most_ sites are saying Intel 10nm has a higher transistor density, but information is kind of flaky on this metric.
Nice find! Thanks for the info, the report highlights that vaping is a good vehicle for the stopping nicotine addiction. I'd love to see the followup on flavored vs. non-flavored 'juices'.
Been doing it for a couple of years. It's not as simple as you think to deal with something like this. If you think it's a once and done deal, you've obviously never had to deal with stuff like this in a group of more than 5 people.
Don’t know how common it is, but it has happened

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_cash_for_influence_scan...
I just realised you were referring to the sarcasm after your rudeness, to justify your rudeness. Makes sense /s
More and more publishers are moving to subscriptions and seeing real, sustainable businesses materialize.

NYTimes seeing 2/3 of its digital revenue from subscriptions: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/business/media/new-york-t...

TheAthletic growing like wildfire on subscription model: https://www.adweek.com/digital/the-athletic-built-its-compan...

SubStack raises for subscription newsletters: https://www.axios.com/substack-raises-2-million-newsletters-...
Wasn't Brave created by the person who created JavaScript (the biggest privacy/security issue in browsers) and donated money to support Prop 8 in California? Not exactly a trustworthy brand if you ask me.

https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/28/after-supporting-prop-8-br...
Ha! Well, at least we get to see some fun? Thinking this way, it sure does give you a sense of detachment from everything that’s going on. I’m undecided if that’s healthy or not? I guess it all depends if you have confidence in the Multiverse space time theories.

PS on another timeline i just called you a socialist. On this one i appreciate you. It’s rough out there...
There's a great deal of focus being given to solving the "annoying ads" problem today. Sadly, these are considering only the aesthetics. Ads are permitted to track and harvest users and data as long as they do so quietly. See https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/94326717839616000... for a fun short story ;)

We're currently testing user-private ads right now; these originate as signals outside of the browser (system-level prompts). If the user engages the notification, a private tab is opened and the advertisement is shown. In the future, we'll be testing publisher-ads (but only with publisher consent).

We'll have more information to share in the future on how quality will be handled. Please keep following official channels for further developments.
"Ultimately, our users will decide."
Another important question is what is a retention rate.
> No businesses were using their code to run payroll and inventory systems. No hospitals were using their code to make treatment decisions. No oil refineries were using their code to runs pumps and valves.

I think you have this very wrong. Until personal computers went mainstream, all programming was for business (or the military, or research).

It's great that a ton of businesses are benefiting for free from antirez's work (including my own) but we owe him and all the other creators/maintainers of the OSS software we use a debt of gratitude. If antirez wants whimsy in the code base, more power to him.
Do you track time at your job? If so, how? If not, why not?
Previously at my job we didn't track task time, but that has changed. We don't bill hourly, but per project & we have a project management system. However, now we are required to track time per task, our internal morale has fallen through the floor. Is it a good idea to track time if we aren't billing hourly, or is there a method to track time without destroying internal morale?
For sure we’ll need a ton more spots, but the total will be similar to the number of gas station spots.

For city dwellers, we really need on-street charging. That’s totally feasible, but there’s a huge chicken-and-egg problem to overcome.
> But when I still drove a manual it always felt like I was planning ahead, engine braking early at red lights (which often meant I could coast though it without completely stopping) etc, which you can't do with the lesser control on an automatic.

Sure you can.
Hey now, oil is fantastic. The U.S. will be able to use the proceeds from this bounty of natural resources to fund an excellent public health system, just like Norway!
I'm talking strictly manufacturing numbers, are you saying Bloomberg or any other outside organization knows a more accurate number?
I could have gone with Madam Tim but I worried it would be too formal.

Listen, I have been on this site from the beginning and I appreciate the generally no bullshit tone. I left reddit back when it became clear that HN was the clear successor of the reddit I used to know but killjoy bullshit like parsing "sir" is not what I'm here for either.
​EU smacks internet in the face with link tax and upload filter laws
It can. Which is why Brave modifies the referer header, and has integrated support for Private Tabs with Tor (for users who wish to go even deeper into the shadows). Not to mention, by cutting out third-party ads and trackers, you greatly reduce the size of your footprint. The first-party may attempt some degree of tracking, but it would pale in comparison to what presently exists online.
This doesn't really help me as a web user, though. If I had the power to reeducate the entire world on how to make websites, I might have a few more items at the top of the list before font icons made the cut :P
Unless by participating in free, decentralized, federated platform you expose yourself to legal liability for any content present on the network and passed through your node. In which case you probably can't afford it.
There is something that puts me off about all these languages that want to show off their own strengths by pointing at other languages weaknesses. X in Y is another such pattern, who cares what 'X' is written in, the question is does it perform well, does it serve a need and is it maintainable and secure if it is network facing or otherwise employed in a situation that would require the program to be locked down properly.

Setting up an artificial challenge with rules that favor 'your' language up front is a great way to get the result that you want, but not a great way to learn. Each language has its strengths and its weaknesses, but none of those strengths and weaknesses matter all that much from the point of view of an end user until they have a direct impact on the quality of that which is produced. And programmers have shown time and again they can write crappy code in just about any language (and good code too...) with the language features having a much smaller impact on the outcome than the quality of the people writing the code.
Kind of strange considering I'm at work, it's a static IP, and work is a Fintec company owned by a bank. Anyway thanks for quickly resolving the issue; The server is up and I'm SSHed in.
It can't be everything all at once. "They process personal data" is equivalent to "they exist" and the compliance cost is non-trivial (or what is everybody complaining about?). The only remaining option is that it's destroying a significant percentage of startups and creating a moat around incumbents.

The only argument you can make at that point is that it's worth the cost, but is it? The damage to privacy of having everyone's data in the hands of conglomerates that are no longer subject to competitive pressure has got to be worse than Mom and Pop occasionally mishandling the information of their two hundred customers. Just having the centralization at all is worse than anything that could happen to any given 0.5% subset of it, because every misuse or compromise is 200 times worse even if they only happen 10% as often.
So maybe Google and Facebook were lobbying the EU politicians?
Watch out, jokes get downvoted, this isn’t Reddit ;)
> As an aside, my wife and I are good friends with a couple who only recently let us know that the husband (single earner for the family) has been unemployed since last year, and that they were completely broke and on assistance programs. We were floored, we had no idea, but in hindsight it explained some behaviors we'd witnessed. Anyways, I mention it because they have two young kids, and are trying to have another one. I just can't fathom how, given what they're going through, that having another child is in any way a sensible decision.

Something has to give. Perhaps people like me will offset others who want multiple children staying at home.

The meta is that in general people will want fewer children if they are better off. Does that mean poor people will have more children by design? Does that mean we can never get rid of poverty?
"I'm not sure why people blame Wal-Mart if their employees take food stamps"

Because that means that Wal-Mart is not paying their employees enough, which means that you and I have to subsidize them. I don't know about you, but it angers me quite a bit that one of the largest and most profitable companies in the country cannot pay its employees enough to be able to eat.

"This is really the fault of poorly-written policy."

How? How is not entirely the fault of the company that has complete control over how much they pay their employees?

"It blows my mind why people blame Wal-Mart and not the folks who developed the legislation of those policies."

Because Wal-Mart is entirely responsible for how much they pay their employees.
> Politics and political economy is often very far from it, especially when it's possible to profit from a disaster.

Sure, but financial services oversight is not that far from air safety (NTSB, FAA). The SEC, FDIC, CFTC, FSOC (established in 2010 via the Dodd-Frank Act), the Fed, and a few others are rather technical agencies. If they have enough power to request certain kinds of data from financial institutions and fine them if they are deemed not secure/stable/compliant enough, they can and will prevent any similar upcoming crisis.

The problem is, of course, that rules are gradually rolled back due to politics, and the oversight agencies understaffed and underbudgeted. Thus they are not proactive, they are reactive, and there was nothing they could have done in 2008 when it was already too late. (So the Fed stepped in with QE, and Congress with TARP, and with ARRA - but that was too small, so recovery took too long.)

That said, yes, absolutely the incentives aligned toward preserving the status quo. Which is not necessarily wrong, as doing something radical was likely unhelpful. What needs to be done is clear (better effective proactive expert oversight) but it's politicized. Just like the FCC regulation with the TelComms industry. And so on.
And there's me thinking the EU wasn't democratic. Not only can elected MEPs stop it, but so can the each member government (or at least enough of them).
During Steve Jobs

Rationally sized phones
No gimmicks
Few model numbers

After Steve Jobs

Phablet sized phones
Gimmicks everywhere (Animoji, AR, etc..)
Lots of confusing model numbers

Basically Apple has become like every other phone manufacturer. It goes to show how much a good leader at the top of a company matters. I will keep using a SE for the foreseeable future.

Fits in my hand
Cheap to self replace screen/battery
Has a headphone jack
We've been conditioned to have that reaction. (That's also why they're red.) Unread-badges are designed to make you open the app, thus increasing the amount of time spent in the app.

Freudian slip: I accidentally wrote "the time spent in the ad" on the first try. :)
Google to discontinue Inbox
WE STOLE LIME BIKES
Actually if Microsoft liquidated its holdings its stock would drop like a rock... Investors know how compounding works and put a high price on growth, if you send the message that there is no future growth you suddenly are valued at what's in the bank.
Promotion Driven Development
Inbox builds on a set of useful primitive ideas, but understanding them is necessary to understand pinning's value.

The central idea of Inbox is that your goal is INBOX ZERO, and that after dealing with any email, you swipe it to the side (or mark it as Done with the checkmark in the web UI) and _do not see it again_. (Like 'Archive' in Gmail.)

The second idea is that your emails are Bundled by category. This is similar to a tag or a filter, but you can choose to have them still show (as a bundle) in the inbox, rather than being filtered to not-seen oblivion. For example, I had one bundle for Pull Requests, another for Jira notifications. The app auto-categorizers things for Finances, Promos, etc, so many of the spam-like newsletters you get will end up bundled together. (Bundles default to only showing things that are not Done, unless you click a bundle's category on the left navigation bar.)

That doesn't sound very useful. What makes it useful is that you can archive/Done an entire category. All of those emails from TeeFury, Newegg, Amazon, Steam, Github, etc that you would normally consider usually-clutter suddenly are SUPER easy to deal with. It basically makes archiving those no longer annoying, as you can do it all at once. Best of all, you see them first, so it's harder to have something get filtered without being noticed.

Pinning prevents you from archiving an item (unless you explicitly click it). This means that you can ping something in a bundle, archive the bundle, and it will archive all the other things, and leave the bundle with that one item visible.

I am profoundly saddened that Inbox is going away. As others have said, it _changed my life_ in terms of how I dealt with overwhelming email volumes at work.