skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It was two things you said which gave me some insight into your worldview:

> Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former.

There is an interesting feature of the Christian bible where God starts out walking/talking directly with Man, and as the stories progress, God grows more and more distant. Eventually, God can only communicate with mankind via prophets and Jesus. I think the point of this storytelling device was to indicate the increasing sin divide between humanity and God. God, being incompatible with sin, simply could not approach us even though He wanted to.

I believe Rand uses this same 'disgusted separation' device in Atlas Shrugged to remove her heroes further and further away from the fallen world.

That you took Galt's exodus and luring of the most productive people from society as an offensive move to destabilize that society struck me immediately as a "class struggle" thought. You had formed Rand's productive archetypes as some kind of oppressive elite class, or some such.

I wish there was some gray in Rand's writing and thoughts to allow for that. In her philosophy, voluntary denial of one's productive capacity to others could never be considered terrorism.

I clearly see targeted terrorism in Galt's luring of key people out of society, regardless of when and why, because we all need one another, period. But Rand thought Galt was saving those people from an already too-far-gone, collapsing world, there to help rebuild after the old world finally bottomed out.

> When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees

This felt to me like another oppressor/victim thought you had where the oppressor might be the employed and the victim might be the indigent or jobless. Life is more complicated than that, so those characterizations are only sometimes true (and perhaps not even mostly true in my personal, subjective experience.) Reducing the world down to too generic terms risks missing the truth of things, giving one false rationale for all kinds of mischief.

You make a good point about gradients in Riordan vs Galt. It's been a couple of years since I read AS, but I recall Riordan's "sin" was that he loved the work too much and gave in to the government cronies rather than just shrugging them off. Ugh, that book was a hot mess...
pend and paper
Also, most of these nations defaulted because of vast political and societal changes. (russia has defaulted many times on it's debt thanks to the soviet revolutions and dissolution of the USSR for example).
I feel the same about American accents. Sometimes they talk so fast, fail to annunciate and it sounds like they have something in their mouths.

I'm a Brit living in Australia.
There is a hierarchy of payment convenience. Barter < cash < card with signature < card with PIN < tap card < tap phone. As you move up people think less about the reality of their payments and spend more. When tap to pay was introduced in the UK the banks predicted and saw a small uptick in bad debt amongst the poorest for this reason.

More transactions are good for the economy but not necessarily for the individual. I use cash because it's easier to not spend it.
Not all hurricanes are equal. This was the most destructive hurricane to hit that region in recorded history (yet still weaker than the storm that took out Puerto Rico a year ago). The Florida panhandle has mostly been an infrequent target for slow and rainy cat 1 hurricanes every 20 years or so. Those storms take down some trees and power lines, and sometimes cause minor flooding.

This was a strong cat 4 with heavy forward momentum and a significant storm surge, a 200+ year storm for the area. Nobody builds for highly unlikely events like this, they buy insurance.
Specifically, they occur only at 100 percent humidity causing condensation.

That could happen if you take the laptop from a cold air conditioned room to outside. The warm wet outside air touches the cold laptop and condenses.

This type of condensation is pretty bad for electrical devices too though.

Ideally the device would be gas and liquid sealed, and this wouldn't be an issue.
It's on by default. I used to be able to recommend Firefox on the grounds that it was different by design — non-commercial, open source, and supporting the open web. I can't do that now without being an obvious liar, hypocrite and/or idiot.
So you're saying that a Macbook Pro isn't up to snuff if they replace a single broken keyboard key. They need to replace the battery, too. I mean, the user might have pressed on the key slightly harder than normal to determine it was broken, which would flex the case slightly and put a non-stardard pressure on the battery, weakening the casing.

Stop justifying their terrible policies. Their decisions are purely economic and magical thinking about technology lets them get away with it. A bent data pin on a connector doesn't lead to a catastrophic cascade of system-wide failures. If it does, then Apple shouldn't be making computers. I guarantee that at some point in the production line those connectors were heaped in a bucket. Maybe a standard bucket, but a bucket nonetheless.

Anecdote time. I got curious about some old PC parts I had in the basement and decided to throw them together. Motherboard, 1st gen Core 2 Duo (with heatsink and original thermal paste), Nvidia 6800GT, etc - pieces from 10+ years ago that I rode hard sat unprotected in a milk crate for over a decade and were moved across the country 3 times. I've been using them as a NAS for the last 6 months (powered 24/7) with no problems. It isn't even in a case. I use a scissors to short the power leads directly on the motherboard to boot it. And that's far from the first time I've janked a computer together.

Perhaps a better example, I volunteer regularly at a computer recycling place and regularly see 5+ year old laptops that were given to people that must have used them for fighting off bears and stirring soup. We clean em up, test em, and put them up for resale. Sure there are occasionally broken ones, but they're surprisingly rare. No one there has ever seen a computer even remotely resembling the condition of the Macbook brought in by the lady in Louis's follow up video.

If you really believe that a tiny dent in a corner of the chassis leads to irreparable, functional damage to an Apple computer, why on Earth would you continue to buy them? And if you don't believe that, why do you allow them to cloud your logic to the point where it's even defensible?

And while I'm ranting, you don't need moisture indicator stickers. Is there corrosion? Is there evidence of arcing/shorts? Are there water stains or bits of debris? That's all you need. Instead, companies put bright stickers that change colors so that it looks impressive and irrefutable to customers and so they don't have to train their technicians to identify water damage.

It isn't just Apple, but companies love to follow Apple's lead in all the wrong ways, so if people don't start pushing back on these anti-consumer moves, we'll all end up trying to convince ourselves that notches on phones aren't the dumbest design choice of the last century. Anyways, sorry for ranting. The whole situation just bothers me.
I agree. I'm inclined to think there's very little excuse to 'get in bed' with the Saudis in the first place, but at the very least we should wait for a statement.
Under pressure, Rep. Debbie Lesko takes down false 'fake doctor' signs
Turkish crisis is caused by government corruption and extreme dependency on USD, not by ECB interest rates.
22 Years of KDE timeline
> Also, we have the [enormous asteroid] coming towards us which is climate change

Maybe someone in particular could sign the Paris agreement, not naming names or anything....
What do you think the probability of each of those factors is? Even if they're each 1 in 100, there leaves an enormous likelihood of those conditions existing many times over in the vastness if the universe.
Assume that there was no IP laws and everybody is freely allowed copy software/ideas/content as they see fit. Now developing a significant size software takes human hours. There is a fixed cost associated per human hour. Now let’s say your cost was $1M and it’s useful to 1M people. As there are no laws to protect IP, I can’t divide my cost to potential users and sell my software at $1 a pop. If I do that then I can’t recoup my cost. This means I must sell my software at $1M to richest possible single buyer. Or create a buyer group much like vacation condo model. In either case, no IP translates to scenario where only upper class of society can benefit by advancement in innovations.

This is a massive philosophical “bug” in free software movement. It’s one of the goal to make software more accessible to everyone but under the reality of economics it does exactly the opposite. Once free software arrives on market, cheaper but slightly superior commercial versions will die out and only expensive superior versions will live benefiting more affluent class/organizations.

The hybrid models where you provide enterprise support for money while keep things free is interesting but I am still not sure that it can be as powerful when you can use full power of economy to drive resource scaling at fullest extent. Most companies which use this model run extremely frugal and usually can’t afford large scale research and development activities.

The things that has been described in article has already caused significant damages. There have been Chinese companies who received designs from innovators and started creating white label products. They didn’t had to worry about capital cost of arriving at that design or reliability to protect the brand reputation. They also didn’t care about doing R&D investments to evolve the product further. The focus was strictly on generating cheap knockoffs that produces short term profits and then move in to next victim. So in essence, your model of IP extinguished innovation, it’s evolutio and promoted cheap short lived knockoffs.
How is the equity split? (33%-33%-33%) or (49%-49%-2%)? Do you have it in written?
>that may turn out to be the last prick needed to pop the current tech bubble.

And honestly I can't wait to get all the nonsense weeded out and see what's actually useful. All this noise makes it rather hard.
I believe that there are great places to work (like the example you gave). What I tried to convey in the article is that this is not a result of HR departments sending out surveys and trying to "engage" people. It's a much more natural, intentional thing that starts at the top.
There isn't yet.

https://github.com/brief-rss/brief/issues/93
> Should society be allowed to try to give the poor but genetically gifted children a boost in life?

I think the idea is that it benefits society for the best to rise and spread their genes. Additionally, it helps to pacify society and prevent revolutions and other violence if poor people have a realistic path to wealth.

An unequal society is an unstable one. I hope we don't have to relearn that lesson in the US when we can see it around the globe.
Haha, yes, I'd trade futurist for data scientist.

In academic circles, we're called foresight or futures studies field but no one knows what that is.
Maybe so, but autism isn’t mentioned on the wiki page on Cluster B you linked to.
They have? Details, sure, like structure of debt and who the creditors are (things like the IMF didn't exist previously), but countries still default.

https://www.rstreet.org/2016/02/22/countries-dont-go-bankrup...

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

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/r101-...

In any case, defaulting on debt is completely natural. It is what's part of how the system is supposed to work. If lenders didn't pay attention, out of lack of knowledge or willfully, and the debtor cannot repay, that's it. There has been a very successful campaign that strengthened the side of the lenders, big and small, over many decades - not necessarily consciously and deliberately (not a concerted effort). It's been successfully made into a moral issue.
> Doesn't this false dichotomy between "the Italian people" and "Financial institutions" bother you?

If I thought it to be a false dichotomy, probably. But (I can't find the link right now as I'm in hurry) as far as I remember when some italian banks were saved some years ago, something like the 80% of the amount of non-performing loans for such bank was composed of loans of 1 million euros or more. So, money that was borrowed by large companies or for very large houses (Yes, one million EUR is a luxury apartment or house in Italy, even in Milan or Rome). A lot of issues for financial institutions were not caused by small companies or "normal" people, and yet those are to bear the burden of saving those institutions.

> solving the issue with immigrants
> Doesn't this bother you even more?

I'm not saying it's correct. But this is a game they're playing.

As others have said, i think the EU by itself is interesting and should go on, but the euro seems an half-baked project. I think that each country should walk its way and have its liabilities. European countries are quite different from each others and would like to solve their problems in a different fashion, rather than following a path chosen by others.

My 2c.
> Cars are also an area of concern to me.

Or maybe Fiat should build a better quality cars? Lancia was a go to car for many governments, but BMW, Audi and Mercedes outcompeted them.
If there are really patents protecting this format, it makes it a complete non-starter for a great deal of work (commercial and academic). Posts like this scare me. I don't want to devote effort to support a format that I might not be able to use in the future. The only thing that I could think of that might work is putting the patents in some sort of defensive portfolio in much the same way that the Open Invention Network protects Linux.

I understand the desire to develop bioinformatics file formats in a more disciplined way than we have done in the past, but this process seems like it may be more of a pain than a benefit. Unfortunately, I couldn't see some of the MPEG-G talks at ISMB this year (other talks were concurrent).

Could anyone explain what the benefits of the MPEG-G format is over something like CRAM? I mean, we were already starting to get close to the theoretical minimum in terms of file size. I personally would like to see more support for encryption and robustness (against bitrot) in formats, but this could be done in a very similar way to current formats.
Is it? Often you would distribute an installer anyway, right?
If Italy falls, it would drag the EU with it. At the same time, Italy is too big to be kept alive with financial aids from the EU.

So the answer is No:

1.) Italy is not too big to fall. A state bankruptcy of Italy is possible. It would occur if e.g. another external crisis hits the EU.

2.) The EU would do anything in their power to prevent that, but in a real emergency it couldn't do much. Italy would have to be excluded from the Eurozone and default.

None of this is likely to happen, though.

As for the Italian government, it's just another proof of the fact that modern Western, Christian, humanist values are mostly a lip service and given up at the earliest sign of causing inconvenience. We already know from the war in former Yugoslavia how fragile modern culture is. We're basically just a bunch of stupid monkeys, and that definitely includes the Italian government. :(
The article states these planes were not airworthy.
This is so cool, reminds me of a documentary I saw about people who do this (it may have even featured the same guy, I can't remember). After seeing the documentary I spent the next weekend trying to get around my apartment blindfolded, clicking. This article inspires me to try again.
And Picasa itself was originally created by Idealab. [I'm an EIR there]
Or perhaps a result of tying team bonuses and promotions to "increased coverage", whatever that means for each product.

Not necessarily malicious - just myopic.
[european here] I can't read this article as there is no way to opt-out of the tracking - isn't this in breach of GDPR?
You can downvote all you like, but all this is to be expected and is unsurprising.

Humans are to these large collective entities or even larger self-organizing entities like political systems, as cells are to humans. There is no reason to assume a humanocentric viewpoint here, and if assuming one leads to continuous dismay and surprise, you've got to widen your perspective and acknowledge higher-order organisms when they're this obvious.

It's like a sort of Singularity. Why would it be surprising if we fail to immediately recognize it for what it is?
Moral Pollution in Place of Reasoned Critique
I'm not saying it's undemocratic. Just that the purpose of the parliament, and EU parties, is much more limited than it should be; no wonder that people then don't really care about EU elections.
The whole project was a boondoggle from the very beginning. It’s up there in the procurement hall of shame with the B1, B2, and LCS.
Do you really think the people want new draconian copyright rules?

No, but big lobbyists do, so there we go.
Which has been discussed before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148749

So whether that's new information or not depends on how much time you waste on HN ;)
haha which part of my comment is "simply not true"?! the parliament doesn't elect the commission, we both seem to agree on that
Given the scarce technical details provided by Bloomberg and demonstrated Bloomberg reporter’s lack of understanding on how hardware works, it’s entirely possible someone fooled Bloomberg. Bloomberg said it has 17 sources, but perhaps one source intentionally gave a false story, another described an unrelated attack, and the third merely commented on the technical possibility of a chip hack instead of its existence. Without much technical expertise, the Bloomberg reporter could not determine which of the sources are credible and relevant, but he surely knew which buzzwords are good for a story. So he created a sensational narrative that could attract as much attention as possible, based on selected information that helps the narrative.
Where is the hardware? I call bullshit until someone produces compromised hardware.
I'm pretty sure it is. I also spent some time to click around to find the opt-out toggle, but that's nowhere to be found.

I guess that sooner or later they'll be forced into compliance.
Carlsberg glues beer cans together as it abandons plastic rings
Ask HN: Alternatives to the Open Invention Network Which Extend Beyond Linux?
The name Open Invention Network is a somewhat misleading name as the goal of the initiative is much narrower than the name implies (just protecting the Linux project.) Is there a patent non aggression project which aims to freely license any application of a given patent?
what is the src of the C function?
> "barrage of 12 patents from GenomSys"

Based on the patent titles (I'll see if I can read some of them in detail tomorrow), most of these sounds almost exactly like the code I wrote while working at the JGI[1][2][3] in the early 2000s that managed moving large amounts of reads from the ABI (Sanger) sequencers, running it through phred/phrap, and storing it all so the biologists could access it easily. This included a custom Huffman tree based encoder/decoder to efficiently store FASTA files at (iirc) about ~2.5 bit/base (quality scores were just stored as packed array of bytes), a very large MySQL backend, and a large set of Perl libraries that provided easy access to reads/libraries/assemblies/etc. It was certainly a "method and apparatus" for "storing and accessing" + "indexing" bioinformatics data using a "compact representation" that provided many different types of "selective access".

I even had code that did a LD_PRELOAD hack on (circa 2002) Consed that intercepted calls to open(2) to load reads automagically from the DB. Reading Huffman encoded data in bulk from the DB (instead of one file per read) reduced the network bandwidth required to open an assembly with all it's aligned reads by ~90%. That sounds a lot like "transmission of bioinformatics data" over a network and "access ... structured in access units". It defiantly involved "reconstruction of genomic reference sequences from compressed genomic sequence reads".

They may have a more efficient compression method, and we didn't do anything re: "multiple genomic descriptors" (was that even a thing <2004?), but... no... they didn't invent what is basically a bioinformatics-specific variations of the same methods used everywhere in the computer industry for as long as "text file formats" have existed.

[1] https://jgi.doe.gov/

[2] These are my personal comments and opinions only, which are not endorsed by or currently affiliated with the Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, or the U.S. Department Of Energy.

[3] While I have no idea if any of that code even exists today (I left the JGI in 2004), I did mark the source files with the BSD license, since there was historical precedent.
Top right corner of the publication post, or https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.01847.pdf.
> where war is waged with blocks, bans, and federation filters

I wish all wars were waged like this. It would solve a lot of worldwide issues.
Seems unlikely we would see a war where shipping lanes between the US and Europe are blockaded for any length of time. Such a war would presumably turn nuclear pretty quickly, at which point getting spares for your F35s is a moot point.
A pirate space organisation that gets the air space over them closed by the government.
They can probably use volunteers.
Government of #India Has Plans to Launch Its Own Cryptocurrency
Grad Student Solved a Fundamental Quantum Computing Problem
I agree on some things the current bunch of muppets is doing (as opposed to the previous bunch of muppets, I am not partisan), but some of the arguments put forward are very dangerous.

> At least they're not saving pointless banks

That would be the same pointless banks who allow people to take out pointless mortgages to live in pointless houses, or to finance pointless businesses who pay pointless salaries.

I did not like the way the world got out of the 2008 crisis (I would have nationalised the shit out of the EU/US banking sector, it was a golden opportunity to make history), but letting huge banks fail would have been world-ending.

> Universal Basic Income is deemed necessary [...] citizenship income won't work the same way

Then why do you mention it to justify a Blair-style "workfare" law that has nothing to do with UBI (for one thing, it won't be universal, which is kinda the point)? Beyond the propaganda, there will be no UBI - it's just a reshaping of unemployment benefits to make certain areas of the country electorally beholden to a certain party, like it happened in the "good old days".

Quoting a holy text, "you were supposed to bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness".

> I don't trust the markets, the finance sector or the economic system to change that

On that I agree, but the realities of the XXI century are that the system is bigger than any single country, and solutions must be co-operative or won't be. I trust demagogues even less than bankers.
You put your kids in the bakfiet and go. Done.

Also it's getting really freaking old that suburbanites say they should be able to drive fast and park where I and my young daughter might like to cycle around town. You don't magically need a car because you have a kid (I am a parent and we have no car). You do need well designed towns and cities where playing in the street isn't punishable by death, though.