skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There’s nothing in there that would obviously prohibit the experiment we’re all discussing here. I can see how someone who deals with university IRBs or professional bioethicists might think there is but if we used risk reward thresholds as high as they do, or held to the precautionary principle that strongly we would still be discussing whether fire was a good idea. IRBs are a one way ratchet with tiny incentives to approve and large ones to deny. They are a cancerous growth on science.
Why would you say we don't understand how these systems work? Stochastic gradient descent, for example, is not particularly enigmatic. Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning by Christopher Bishop is a good place to start if you want to gain an understanding of how and why machine learning algorithms work.
Cryptocurrencies cannot prevent accumulation of extreme wealth in the hands of a few. The reason is simple, yet important: Money is not wealth. Money represents wealth. If you restrict the amount of money per person, wealth will be represented by a different metric – camels, for example.

> Yes that's a big 'if', just like for any other idea.

No. Any idea that requires such an "if" (i.e., the implementation has to be perfect for the idea to succeed) is doomed to fail.
That's bullshit. Consider a recipe:

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet or paella pan over medium heat. Stir in garlic, red pepper flakes, and rice. Cook, stirring, to coat rice with oil, about 3 minutes. Stir in saffron threads, bay leaf, parsley, chicken stock, and lemon zest.

I'm not saying there's no place for OOP in the English language, but I strongly disagree that OOP always, or even most of the time, reads as OOP.
They sell targeted screen space seems more accurate.
I've suffered through this ever waiting for it to engage with any of the arguments from MIRI, Bostrom and co. yet it only managed to paint a few strange windmills for itself to charge at.

So it talks about Singularists, and how misguided they are, and how AI is a misnomer and it should be called EI and namedrops cybernetics and systems and reminisces about how we lost our way.

It is a bad manifesto, a boring and toothless essay.

It has a good point, but alas I forget it as I tried to keep reading.

Anyway, let's just take this sentence: "We can measure the ability for systems to adapt creatively, as well as their resilience and their ability to use resources in an interesting way." - This is so broad and universal, that it's either meaningless or false. And there is absolutely no argument supporting this. I highlighted this, because this is what directly contradicts the alarmist thinking. If we were able to measure creativity and resilience in general, we could train AIs to get a higher creativity score, furthermore, we could then control them.

And it's also interesting that this claim goes counter to a claim a bit earlier about how unknowable and messy things are going to be.

It also somehow picks corporations as the perfect model for a superintelligence, which is convenient, but by doing so sidesteps all the real arguments about how a self-perfecting machine superintelligence is not bound by slow components. And somehow also ignores the reality of Samsung, AIG, MicroSoft, Oracle, Shell, BP and how all got away with almost everything. (And other companies that are quite successful, despite competition. And how much we have to work to keep them sort of aligned to our laws and goals.)

The best argument against a hard take off is that it's hard to imagine that so many S-curves can be combed through in so little time with the real world resource constraints. However Yudkowsky did an analysis of that: https://intelligence.org/files/IEM.pdf and sure, it's just a step toward more questions, more hard to imagine things, but not something that should be dismissed just because our mind throws up its hands and says "i don't see how, it's very complex, so unlikely, let's go shopping".

And this essay is exactly that. It goes on and on about those blind Singularists, and completley misses the point.
I for one can't wait for Typed FP to become mainstream as soon as possible. I think the prevalence of scripting languages in large systems today is a quirk of history.

In early 2000s, as the web was growing to be an application delivery platform, the only practical statically typed language was Java. It didn't have generics or lambdas at the time, and was infested with the sprawl of J2EE. Choosing Ruby/Python over Java was at the time an act of rebellion and a show of technical superiority. To quote pg: "if they wanted Perl or Python programmers, that would be a bit frightening-- that's starting to sound like a company where the technical side, at least, is run by real hackers."

The static type system in Java is object-oriented: the only way to create a type is to create a class. I believe it was limited in abstraction power and everyone attributed it to the rigidity of static types. Java has come a long way since, but the sense that dynamic typing is superior to static types lingers.

But OCaml's static types are a completely different kind of type. There is a kind of "procedural" static typing in Go, C, and to some extent C++ where primitives are typed and you can construct structs and unions without much ceremony. Then there is object-oriented static typing in Java and C#, which traces its origin back to Simula through C++ where types and classes are the same. Then you have functional static types where types are just and only about data. Almost all Typed FP languages use a form of Hindley-Milner inference, support algebraic data types and pattern matching, have generics (they were invented by Milner for ML in 1973), and allows for code organization and encapsulation through modules and opaque types.

Algebraic data types alone is a tool for thought like no other. You'll start reifying concepts that would've otherwise gone implicit in your codebase thanks to ADT. The languages are solid, ecosystems are vibrant but small and that can only be fixed with more people. Come on in, the water is fine!
I posted this to show how difficult home automation devices can be and how much one has to invest into proper localization. While the document shows that for many combinations adapter exist, the price of the adapters is almost as high as a new thermostat (most vendors changed the size in 1998 so if one has a 20 year old home you still need an adapter or a plumber to replace the valve.)
When I worked for RELEX (reed elsiveer) New Scientist was one of their "vanity" publications.
> An authorization token for a single transaction to a specific party for a specific amount could probably work without chargebacks.

1) This is precisely what you get from EMV transactions. A cryptogram covering these details, signed by your hardware token (card). Online transactions don't do this, it's true, but that's why we have the verified-by-visa type stuff. It's imperfect, I agree.

2) Chargebacks are still necessary, because it's not just about merchant overcharging or unauthorised transactions, it's about what happens when someone fails to ship, or sends you broken goods etc
Ask HN: What have you used to short Bitcoin?
> Academic publishing is a favorite recurring topic on HN, and it's one I've occasionally dipped into discussing, although these discussions are typically 99% one-sided and void of nuance or reasoned arguments. It's like discussing politics online.

Well I think we should all be grateful then that your Highness has come down to us 99% one-sided thinkers void of nuance or reason. Way to start a discussion, asshole.

> I'm a shareholder and board member of a large privately-held, family-owned academic publishing company.

So obviously you can enlighten us with your completely unbiased view on this, since you have no stake in the matter at all, right?
Building a towering millikelvin thermometer
Very rarely see police on the Tube in London (or in Berlin, Lisbon, Milan or Barcelona for that matter). Still little crime (other than pickpockets) and practically no violent crime.

Seems to me like the problem is probably bigger than just failings in law enforcement.
Seems having an open iOS AppStore is just an incentive for crap apps. Not to say iOS doesn’t have them currently, but not matching the levels of Android
In addition to my reply above about code-weaving, rather than the all or nothing approach that some code generation techiniques suffer, our tool allows proposed changes to be reviewed before you commit with writing the generated code to your disk.

This allows developers to feel in control of what's changing in their code base during generation, rather than being worried that some custom code is going to get wiped out by code-gen without them realizing.

In a past project I was on, we had our solution build process run T4 templates to generate code, and it significantly slowed down the build process.

We feel code generation is something you explicitly do when you're "modelling", it's not something that's necessary to create a build nor should it create run-time dependency.
Because they really want to push their other stuff. Transfers, rental cars and hotels is where the money is made.
Is this better than itasoftware Matrix? I used it twice this year to build more complicated itineraries, including layovers/stopovers or having just one leg (Germany-nyc) be business class on an a380 for only $500 more.
Try playing with it. The advanced controls are very powerful, for example to find layovers, so less than 24 hours (so you don’t incur a likely stopover fare add-on), you can do something like “maxconnect: 1440; minconnect: 1000”. I’m in fact typing this from a 20 hour layover in Vancouver!
It’s Easy to Blame Online Rhetoric for Violence. The Reality Is Much Harder
It seems like Rust would have been an even better choice, had it been available at the time they chose OCaml.
So you think that someone who's capable of building a system like this, has somehow missed the fact that you should store passwords safely? Nah, I don't buy that.
#CMS30 – 30 Day 30 CMSes Challenge
Some people like bots to initiate conversation and suggest things, but others (like me) want an obedient program to respond with helpful things when requested.

To answer your question, I think making the bot get posts which are already popular (more than 10 points) will prevent this, as posts with more points are less likely to be removed.

Bots aren't for everyone, as the HN community's attention on this post demonstrates. But don't let that deter you a good bot can be a useful tool for a lot of people.
> individuals who act more like rogue AIs than human beings.

That's a chilling but very accurate description. I don't have children, but I doubt I could live in SF/LA/NYC with kids. There isn't a major European city I'd say that for.
The nice thing about OCaml (and its MS cousin F#) is that it's a hybrid language. Know FP? Fine, you can code that way. Know OO? Fine, you can code that way. It meets you where you are.
TIL chickens are wi-fi jammers
The Myth of Betting Big: Why deep pockets don’t always deliver growth
Joseph A. Walker, United States' seventh man in space
HSN-1000 Nuclear Event Detector (2005) [pdf]
> what problem decentralised currency is supposed to solve.

for example the central european bank deciding to devalue the euro, making us all 20% poorer in a few short months of 2016

not that bitcoin solves the fluctuation issue, but it's one of the issues that having a central bank gives us the people in our microeconomics when the politicians go all in on macroeconomics
> Facts are not opinion. Morals and ethics however definitely are.

Is that a fact, or an opinion? :-)
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Of course.

Likewise, if you hold some bank notes in your wallet next to your credit card, an attack will deprive you or your money. The bank might cover any charges made on the card pending some admin and police work. For that service you pay a fee to the bank.
Completely our thinking too. Code generation should not be a build or run time dependency.

Our tool also allows developers to review proposed code changes before choosing to commit them to disk.

Code generation is something you choose to do explicitly as you model.
Bootstrapping or fundraising – which way to go?
Do you buy the good directly from the seller?

If so, and if you believe the seller isn't trustworthy, I'd recommend the use of a smart-contract that only releases the coins if both parties sign a message.
Study: Stratospheric aerosol injection tactics and costs
Although not for much longer!
Not contradicting your other excellent points in any way, but I'd argue the Java type system is better described as "class oriented" rather than object oriented.

OOP is a rather wide umbrella of techniques, involving inheritance, abstraction, encapsulation, etc, all of which can be supported in ways very different from the "let's build everything on the concept of classes" approach taken by Java.
Exceptional piece of research.

I'm still dazzled why the realisation of what China's "grand plan" was, came so late into mainstream political culture in the West.

Few month ago, I wrote a piece saying that China was long preparing (at least since 1991,) an economic war chest in case the country will be hit by sanctions like North Korea was, or even worse. A big portion of all national level economic programs since 1991 were there to aid and act upon that strategy. And they weren't even trying to conceal the original strategy paper, and if one can get access to state archives, they will find a lot of evidence that Chinese state did fully commit to it as early as 1992. The motto of the program is "the primacy of expansionism."

They correctly identified that US domination in 20th century came from how they moulded the world after WW2. Now, when the West wasted itself on two decades of useless "wars on X," they felt that:

1. "The world was messed up enough" to yield to China's own Marshal plan.

2. This is the last opportunity to act before US takes action

So, all those impressive t-bill, cash, gold, and FX reserves that the West gave China in the last 30 years, will now be used by China to buy its own Pax Sinica
> and the moment you have to bring up Nazi's you're argument doesn't hold water

Not really.

You are thoroughly misusing Godwin's law, and Godwin himself stated that he never intended people like yourself to stifle conversation on a subject by chanting his name.

Godwin stated that references and comparisons to Hitler or the Nazis are perfectly reasonable in a conversation, as long as the person shows sufficient understanding of history, which the posters you are arguing with seem to have.
Banks are not really necessary.
Even by basic game theory, scamming your customers has long term negative value.
Reputation is worth much more than money.

We just have to design systems around it.
Have they ever not been? I think through history China always have been a superpower (with some short exceptions).

Edit: this might have been the longest time China was not a superpower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation
It works the other way as well, there are some products businesses can't sell and communities they can't service because the risk of fraudulent chargebacks is so high.
So the question was: "What problem does X solve?"

And your answer is: "Well, problem Y. Except it doesn't solve it."

Or am I missing something?
Kleros: A Cornerstone of Mass Adoption in the Decentralized Economy?
This is great! I’ve been hoping someone — IBM or one of it’s partners like Raptor or Gigabyte — would make a lower-end POWER8/9 system available. The price of this board ($1K) is much more affordable for a hobbyist developer who wants to tinker with POWER, try porting some open-source projects, etc.
Blockchain based reputation system. Buy only from reputable sellers. First time seller, you just have to test your luck with those.
on 2), the token must be for a specific amount, a merchant shouldn't be allowed to double dip or charge more unless he specifically asks authorization to do so.

On the merchant not delivering, I think this is really wrong. If you have a conflict with a merchant, I appreciate that reversing the payment is a convenient way to apply pressure but I think is not the fair way to do it. It should be legal process really (if it ever gets that far).
Trump is right, jobs for black Americans abound.  why it may not last
Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Blockchain
Anyone interested doing something like this, I've also done this with a esp8266 and a linear actuator. Detailed how to:

https://blog.garble.org/arduino-chicken-coop-hardware/

https://blog.garble.org/arduino-chicken-coop-hardware/

I've installed a few of these now and love em
I don't feel the bytecode comparison makes sense, because the generated code is human readable, bytecode is (to almost all intents and purposes) not.

We feel that code generation is something one does explicitly while modelling, not something done every time you build.
How to set goals and achieve them
A spam post advertising a spam product from a spam company? On a subject that is of particular interest to spammers? Surely not!
Ask HN: What should I learn in next 1 year to become the top one percent
Given that I can consistently dedicate 1 hr every day, what 'tangible' skill I should master to become top 1% or even 10% in a particular field.
I am a python developer with 4 years of experience.

edit: Why? If you are the top one percent in any competitive field, income and freedom will follow the same without much effort. Of course, this is one reason. But I recently read about the power of playing the long game here: https://fs.blog/2018/10/long-game/.

So my assumption here is if I am able to put consistent effort towards something in long run, it shouldn't be difficult to master.

edit2: Okey. I think I underestimated what it takes to be the top 1 percent. What about top 10 or 25 percent? I think there is enough you can achieve with that level of mastery.
I hated the programming assignments for deep learning.

It felt like a connect the dots drawing - giving an ipython notebook with pieces of code missing.
I'm not sure how to do in the iOS one but I ma sure it's possible because my partner does it. For Android you just need to go in the side panel and there is a Offline Maps button.
Well you took over and did a terrible job.

Hash passwords, not encrypt.

An encryption is reversible, a hash result isn't.
Intent Architect[1].

Our main development focus right now is on usability for new comers and we're improving it regularly.

[1] http://intentarchitect.com/
> The good thing is that people can still share cool things via snapchat, fbook and their future replacements. The need for google is not the same as it once was.

These platforms are also overrun with spam and users are rapidly becoming disinterested in them, too.
why don’t publishers pay

Why buy a cow when you can get milk for free?
If you look at another perspective though, of people whose economies are collapsing, or people living under authoritarian regimes, it serves a need.

Or in a broader sense: "De-regulated money transfer of any kind" -- for which the costs and risks of a cryptocurrency transaction are an acceptable tradeoff.

But for vanilla payments -- apparently they aren't (and never will be).
The only tangible benefit I can read into that is peer review, which isn’t paid for by the journals at all. Open access journals have demonstrated the ability to have effective peer review journals without the middlemen.

Otherwise you haven’t mentioned anything of actual value.
What makes you think it's SMTP and not SMTPS?
Use a pay what you want model. Check elementary.io IMO they are the most successful using that model.
I think you answered your own question with the last sentence.
Nice. Now the big question is what language to pick, because if there are many small communities around each language it won't help the cause.

I see Elixir (also mentioned in this thread) getting some traction. Like most of the time its success is mainly due to a singular project with a specific application, namely web programming in Phoenix. Just as back then with Ruby and Rails.

Probably F# would be a better candidate for mainstream adoption with a vast .NET ecosystem and the open source release of .NET Core.
I'd be very surprised if the motor and electronics last a season without fault.
We know IQ is heritable the same way we know height is heritable. People resemble their relatives more as their shared inheritance grows.

BGI found no common genes of large effect. That means intelligence is more like height than skin colour. There are lots of genes that have a small effect. We know there are rare genes of large effect because Ashkenazim have at least two, the ones that lead to torsion dystonia and Tay-Sachs disease lead to greater IQ in heterozygotes.

We know evolution in intelligence has not stopped because human populations differ in intellectual productivity to absurd degrees of that wasn’t true. Evolution requires heritability, variation and selection and all those clearly exist.
All sacks of meat, humans included, are to some degree. We're made of a lot of water.
He's talking about understanding their process, not their mechanics, machine learning systems are usually black boxes with no guarantees, we run into issues with this fact regularly because all we can do is train them and then study the results, it can't tell us anything for certain.
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Because of emergent phenomena. That’s like saying you understand how organisms work because you understand how molecules work. Look at Wolfram’a New Kind of Science and even finite automata can have amazing patterns.
While the western world is whining about irrelevant ethics the Chinese will eventually eradicate countless diseases, engineer the perfect superhuman and take control of their evolution. Transhumanism is here and happening right now. We are committing a crime against our future generations if we decide not to participate in it. We actively decide against prosperity and advancement. We are luddites.

Complacent western weakness at its best.
You get two things from an accelerator, and the value you get from them depends on the particular accelerator and on how much you need those things.

The first thing you get is access to a network or advisors willing to help you learn how to grow your business and make connections for sales and VCs whom you might be able to persuade to invest.

The second thing you get is legitimacy. This is mostly signaling. If an accelerator with a good reputation accepted you, that’s a signal to others that your team and business have been vetted and have potential.