skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When I read news articles about topics with which I am familiar, I encounter plenty of statements that strike me as basically false. Consider this excerpt from the New York Times' piece of Donald Knuth [1]:

> Following Dr. Knuth’s doctrine helps to ward off moronry. He is known for introducing the notion of “literate programming,” emphasizing the importance of writing code that is readable by humans as well as computers — a notion that nowadays seems almost twee.

Calling the idea that code should be readable by humans "almost twee" just makes me think that the writer has no idea what they're talking about. Sure, there are times when people write crap code, but being readable by humans is the whole reason why we built coding languages. Not to mention, the average readability of code has probably increased over time, not decreased. The author is basically just pulling this statement out of her behind to embellish Knuth's reputation, to the detriment of the credibility of the rest of the article.

It's nowhere near the magnitude of the fabrications in Der Spiegel of course, but it does seem to be the case that writers are willing to trust their own prejudices without fact checking. I was able to spot when those prejudices in the above example but only because I have relevant domain knowledge. It makes me wonder, how many times do I swallow the BS without knowing it? It's just a matter of how small (or big) of a statement they're willing to make without verifying it's veracity.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/science/donald-knuth-comp...
I think I've heard of this guy, but theres probably more than one. They describe how to search faster, not produce results faster.

Whats really silly is, its already as fast as it needs to be: Google has long since admitted their bottleneck isn't reading all the websites and parsing them (they could point their entire Death Star-esque amount of raw network and disk bandwidth and DDoS the entire Internet at once, every single indexable webserver)...

Its actually storing them coherently in their database(s). They have to store them before they can process them (thus reading them back while other storing is happening), and then reading their OTHER database of searchable metadata.

Databases Are Hard(tm). Next gen databases like Spanner and BigTable didn't get invented because reading websites was hard (where "better search algos" fits in), but because coherently handling a large database of said fetched results was hard.

Actually, it isn't even Databases Are Hard(tm), its the Laws Of Physics Are Hard(tm). 90% of whacko claims I can dismiss because either that, or I'm reasonably sure P != NP.
The book keeps getting recommend on HN presumably by true fans of DOOM. Apart from a few brilliant bits scattered throughout, it was a disappointing read for me.
This is a very good point. Top youtubers definitely have the resources to put up a decent fight and add a certain level of consequence for haphazard video claims by the Music Companies.
> he just linked to video that he liked which came from an account that is verified by youtube

The video INCLUDED neo-nazi rhetoric. Literally click on any others and they include n-slurs in the title. Again, either he's a moron or he's a racist. I'm not sure if the former is that much better a look for him.

Also, young kids can figure things out, yes, but the biggest YouTube star on the planet shouldn't be normalizing neo-nazi terrorism.
The skill of chilling.
released this year and great reads:

* Bad Blood - mentioned tons of times

* Billion Dollar Whale - story of the 1MDB scandal

* Black Edge - chronicles insider trading on wall street

* The Billionaire Raj - about India's income inequality and ruling oligarchy
2FA is a user interface disaster, exporting the failures of software security as a huge annoyance on to users. I would rather be hacked than deal with 2FA.
Jane Eyre. Not my usual kind of book and I didn’t know what to expect, but wanted to catch up on the classics and loved it. Not only beautifully written, it also felt like taking a break outside my usual bubble.
Well listened since they were all audiobooks. But they are the top 20% or so.

For around the last year I've been listing (with a little review) the ones I listen to

https://blog.darkmere.gen.nz/category/misc/
Here's one that's out of the norm around here- Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story by Chris Nashawaty.

Caddyshack is one of my favorites comedies. I've always imagined its creation was a well thought out journey from the first idea to the finished movie. It turns out it was not. The movie didn't really take shape until it was being edited and getting ready to be released.

The book is a description of how it was created. A great read on describing the process from idea to award-winning movie.

I've worked with very creative teams and wondered how anything gets done. It's very different from the engineering/techie way of getting from point a to finished. The process that created Caddyshack is a great example of that.
Aside, but I get all my Q&A jollies from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ these days. The moderation is unparalleled and the questions as well as the answers are interesting. There will be unanswered questions, which is frustrating, but the quality remains high.
And let us not forget the blasphemy of bracketless blocks of code. Or uninitialized variables.
Properly stopping a SIP flood (2010)
Crucifixion was a degrading and viscerally disturbing form of execution, with connotations not unlike hanging or the electric chair today. It was not the kind of thing to centralize one’s messianic cult around. The fact that it happened once is already so bizarre that the crucifixion is considered by historians to be one of the most certain truths of Jesus’ life story.
* A Deepness in the Sky - Vernor Vinge

I read it again this year. I read it for the first time about 9 years ago and its who I wanted to be when I grew up.
Disagreed. YouTube is an unsually bad actor in this space, pretty much anyone who has to interact with them have complaints.
May you burn in hell forever if you code your for/if/while without spaces and your function calls with spaces...

Remember that a compiler is not the only entity reading your code, other humans have to read it too. Have pity on them, they're not as flexible as your compiler.
I'm not a fan of Bazel either. Luckily, this doesn't require Bazel. Their guide [1] explains how to build using regular make for RPi.

[1]: https://www.tensorflow.org/lite/rpi
Goodbye, Things
> You don't have to 'believe' in the guy, however his methodology, knowledge of history and enthusiasm for the subject is not something you find in the priesthood.

It's not something you find among any credible scholar in the field. Carrier is fringe for a reason.
HPC software like MPI has been using these kind of tricks for years to achieve sub-microsecond (often as small as 0.2-0.3 us) latency for inter-process communication.
It actually does this using MAC addresses. :-) It says "Where are you?" if not I'm not home and "We need to go outside" if I am home.
Incidentally: for what that whole `match` block could be with the entry API:

*example_map.entry("some_key").or_insert(0) += 1;

Or, if you prefer an extra intermediate for clarity:

let entry = example_map.entry("some_key").or_insert(0);
*entry += 1;

This is a good example of how, often, Rust’s approach of having greater underlying complexity but exposing it sanely ends up allowing you to write something that is semantically superior and easier to reason about, while being faster too.

This and Rust’s ownership model (which I declare stands under the same banner) is the sort of thing that I regularly miss when working in JavaScript (and regularly missed when I used to work in Python plenty).
Do you have a link to share about that proposal? As a Python fan I'm very curious.
The Righteous Mind by Johnathan Haidt

Tribe by Sebastian Junger

just put my full lists on medium:

https://medium.com/@dopeshika/2018-in-books-startup-science-...

https://medium.com/@dopeshika/2018-in-books-mind-consciousne...
Maybe add a definition of 'risk' in the quick summary. It tends to man different things to different people, and linking back to a definition (e.g. the effect of uncertainty on objectives) helps keep discussions on track.
>The second link was fascinating and would make a good submission to HN.

It was - that's where I got it from.
I know it's already been mentioned, but John Carreyrou's "Bad Blood" is a must-read. Even as someone who read and enjoyed every story published in the WSJ about Theranos, the book managed to have even more context and incredible (and hilarious) reporting. It's a book as entertaining as it is invaluable in its investigative journalism.
Facebook is playing a very dangerous game by not allowing people full control of their feeds and even algorithmically sorting things. That's different from just "social media", it's a specifically Facebook way of doing things
I had a white blonde hair, blue eyed student ask me what I thought Jesus looked like the other day. After first clarifying that Jesus wasn't a Christian, but a Jew, I proceeded to say he probably looked more like bin Laden than the student. Needless to say, this student from the backwoods American South was not happy with that, but I thought it was hilarious.
I remember an interesting discussion I read either here or on reddit between an American and a German where the German stated that he believed he had an accurate idea of what life was like in the US. I didn't have an opinion on who was right or wrong in that discussion at the time but if the lies stated in this article about this town did not immediately send off the bullshit detector for most Germans I'm afraid they've been fed a significant amount of misinformation and propaganda and really have no idea how we live here.
Landlords opposed it and tenants put it on the ballot, it is unlikely all parties were acting against their own interest.

Rent-control has been essentially banned since 1995 yet housing costs have exceeded wages during that time. It's also quite extreme to claim that rent-control is so bad for every possible community everywhere that it must be universally outlawed.

Towns which now have fewer construction restrictions than in '95, also have raising land costs.

Pricing of necessary goods differs from ordinary goods.

The expanding and primarily ideologically driven Lezze-Faire approaches have clearly failed in both medicine and housing. And while the US might be growing tired of wasted GDP on mediocre medical outcomes, it is clear the society will tolerate vastly more homelessness and degradation in housing conditions, regrettably.
Here's the difference:

Christians (ignoring some defunct or very rare forms) have it as an article of faith that Jesus was a real historical human who was also divine.

Atheists would deny that Jesus or anyone else was God, but there is nothing about atheism that is opposed to duly considering possibly trustworthy evidence that the Jesus whom Christians believe on faith was/is God may have indeed existed as a real historical human.

At the same time, unlike (for example) Muslims who believe Jesus was a human prophet but not himself divine, atheists don't have any specific belief about Jesus's human historical reality at all. If the evidence shows that he was made up by combining bits of multiple people's teachings, atheism is unaffected.

Therefore, an atheist's writing about this question is, all things being equal, more likely to neutrally consider all the available the secular observable facts about the question, without influence from religious motivations, than a Christian's.

However, that italicized precondition is usually false.

Real writers vary in their approach to scientific and historical rigor, being imperfect humans themselves and not abstractions. So an individual Christian could well be a more trustworthy source on this than an individual atheist, or vice versa.
I recently started using a Titan key where I can and am in the process of requiring it for my team.

We can handle good passwords. But our customers deserve for our database, admin tools, etc to require the more comprehensive authentication.

I'm not going to make our customers use 2FA, but we do require it internally now. We can handle it.
So what would be the consequence of giving strikes to those that make bogus copyright claims, or revoking the ability to make claims if the rate at which they are overturned goes above a certain percentage? It seems to be a pretty obvious solution to me, but I'm willing to give YT the benefit of the doubt if people give compelling explanations.
He might just really like that style of shirt and have a bunch. Like do you have a 78% success rate?
Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking[1]. Not only about cosmology but also about topics such as the existence of god, finding life in other planets, the future of the humanity and other very intriguing questions.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Answers-Questions-Stephen-Hawki...
We're building a way for users to opt into getting a few ads a day in the form of device push notifications (alerts in the top right of your monitor etc). We're not injecting ads into the HTML of sites visitors view. So yes, we're doing ad stuff, but we're not "replacing" the ads that we're blocking. Does the distinction make sense?

To your point about the Ars Technica comments, my understanding of things from conversations since I've joined in July 2018 is that when Brave launched, they put out a lot of info about stuff they were _going_ to do, and one of those ideas was to replace ads. However soon after launch, a lot of folks in the company and outside of the company explained to management that this was a really stupid idea and would be scummy. So Brave never went forward with it though it was a talking point to journalists early on. You could argue that having an idea to do a scummy thing two years ago is very bad. I'd like to think it's good when startups listen to feedback and adjust their product plans accordingly.
U2F keys are ideal in this regard. You typically have your keys with you. The only weakness is that not enough apps incorporate u2f over nfc.
Not to mention that Jesus has more evidence to back up his historicity than most. Unless, of course, you just dismiss all of the Gospels and Pauline letters as not being evidence. And even then there still is quite a bit of evidence, really.
Pass the Cookie attacks bypass most 2FA solutions. So be aware of malware.

Interesting write up here:
https://wunderwuzzi23.github.io/blog/passthecookie.html

I have seen this being used by red teams, not sure about real malware.
I think there is a chance a competitor could pop up and hurt YouTube. They would need to have a ContentID like system, monetization, and a non sucky copyright system that isn’t gamable, and of course infastructure. Very tall orders but could be done with a talented team.

YouTube has it exists today are out right abusing their indie people. Shuttering channgles, demonitizing channels with very little feedback. A could case in point would be Max Yurev. He has a great photograpy channel and they demonistized him for months until he recieved some weird fwd email that said re-monitize him its becoming a “PR problem”. They have zero accountability.
LG Is Said to Plan Selling TVs That Roll Up Like Posters in 2019
Normally injunctive relief of this type is awarded in the event that there is irreperable harm, but Qualcomm could be compensated by a per-unit license fee + penalty damage award on sold infringing items. That's why I'm surprised. Still haven't had time to look at the reasons, though. Travelling for the holiday so I'm a bit behind.
> That's like saying most homeless people choose to be on the street

While hard to show real data, I have 14 years of experience in the EMS field were a LOT of our "customers" are homeless. I can say unequivocally that greater than 50% of the homeless in my jurisdiction have no desire to live a "normal" life. That is... life with a job, mortgage/rent and/or insurance... and TAXES. We (tax payers) literally pay for everything and they know it. They abuse the living shit out of the 911 system and emergency rooms because they know they will be treated regardless of the ability to pay.
As someone from the Bay Are who has moved to NYC, I hope so! It's high dimensional negotiaton so fingers crossed.

Also, really appreciate the depth of the coverage in this one.
Deep Paper Gestalt
This was actually the plot of Zoolander 2!
The right way to do it is to use client-side TLS certificates in combination with the username and password. Add in a passphrase for the private key and you could have 3FA.

All that's really needed is for browser vendors to improve their UI for generating certificate signing requests and importing certificates.
Please don't unsubstantive comments, and especially not racial or nationalistic flamebait, to HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
FWIW, overly long iterator comprehensions, or unwieldy chains of them, are common in Python, but a local generator function is much cleaner most of the time in my experience. The difference is slight here but the rule of thumb never goes wrong for me. Splitting the logic out into a generator function tends to make the flow more readable, and it becomes easier to make changes to the logic or add intermediate filters or variables.
I play the piano and sometimes record and put on YouTube. Over 50% of the time, I get a copyright claim, usually from a big publisher, that my recording of myself that I made myself, of Bach, Chopin, Liszt, etc., is violating their copyright.

And I, too, am angered that there's no option in the contact from YouTube for "this is a fraudulent or false claim. I own this material."

YouTube should tell BMI, Sony, DG, to be more careful when flagging amateur performances of classical works.
> Certain languages just sound beautiful - Japanese and French

You've managed to pick the two languages whose sound irritates me the most, which I think illustrates the fragility of this kind of thinking perfectly.
Librefox, mainstream Firefox with a better privacy and security
I avoided this book for a long time because of a video I saw of Peterson taking an uncharitable stance towards trans people, but it was recommended to me so often by people I trust that I decided to check it out. I found I disagreed wildly with much of what he had to say, but often agreed enthusiastically with much else. An incredibly thought-provoking book, especially if you're interested in self-examination and living a better life. Don't take his 12 rules as a prescription for how to live life. Rather, think of the book as an extended conversation with a smart, somewhat disagreeable man who will spur you into thinking about what your 12 rules are.

Bottom line: I'm glad I read it and would recommend it. With this caveat: don't take his 12 rules for life as a prescription
This. I reported a "famous" author multiple times for violating a bunch of rules and I was retaliated against and my write/update 'privileges' suspended. Well, flunk you too, Quora.

Not to mention, the abundance of dirt quality content and insincere questions (and answers)
Absolutely loved The Righteous Mind, it was one of my favorites this year as well. I just ordered his next one, The Coddling of the American Mind.
I see no irony -- it's no individual's responsibility to ensure that a functioning market exists or to voluntarily use a worse service/product out of some vague sense of duty.
And it's not bent, is it?
Ideally, I would not want to use a public computer to access an important account. People can forget to use an incognito session, forget to log out, or even forget to close the browser.
It started with a small bell on a hook next to the door and I would take their paw and hit the bell before letting them outside. Eventually they caught on and I'd give them a lot of praise when they did it on their own. The next iteration was an analog setup and the latest uses a Raspberry Pi. I will say, I have three dogs and only one (the smartest) ever caught on with the bell and analog version. Two of them are able to use the newest version which is the easiest to trigger, since it has a touch surface that is 4x4 inches. The third dog has never caught on. But, he hates going outside, so it's likely he doesn't want to catch on.

I'm not exactly sure how they know when to expect me home, but they seem to have a decent sense of time or are sensitive enough to external triggers that condition them, like neighbors arriving home after work, rush hour traffic, etc.

They do exhibit certain behaviors when it's feeding time (hasn't been automated yet), which is the same every night and that is consistent through daylight savings changes and day lengths varying with seasons. So I assume they have some rudimentary sense of time.
> (I don't think it is.)

If your master password is someone exposed, then nothing really protects you.
In contrast, I wouldn't hesitate to enable 2FA if the company supported doing so via client-side TLS certificates (such that I can import it into my browser and use it in combination with my existing credentials).
Martha Wells' The Murderbot Diaries (a series of four novellas) was completed this year. It's about an AI which figures out how to break out of it's control module, and decides to not go on a stereotypical murderous rampage, and instead just do their job well enough that no one notices they're watching soap operas in their free time.
Please define "reading"? In my experience, it means different things to different people.
Very articulate and thoughtful. It makes me happy that level-headed people like yourself exist.

I'm curious, where do people like yourself linger? What made you into a person who can respond as such? Are you an engineer who reads a lot? An academic?

Pardon me if that's direct, I just feel like understanding that may lead to an understanding of how to promote more level-headed discussion.
How to Measure Anything - Douglas Hubbard

This book is a treatise against the notion that some important things can’t be measured. Full of information about how to figure what should be measured and then how to measure it. Very thorough and he managed to answer every objection I could come up with throughout.

Deep Work - Cal Newport

Starts with the thesis that a generation of workers have forgotten how to concentrate on mentally challenging tasks. Full of ideas and inspiration for rebuilding your stamina for intense focused thought.
At some point, I agree. But then I see people on here talk up Haskell and lisp, an those are far worse.
Good points. Add Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy to the list of ways things can be better:

https://qz.com/480741/this-free-online-encyclopedia-has-achi...

I thought that sort of thing might be copied by more educators on more topics. Same non-profit or public-benefit corporation might run them all with some charter, license, and/or contract maximizing the availability while still making money to support content updates. Could be many doing this sort of thing.
CoinCheckup: Best CoinMarketCap Alternative
All talk no action.
But in nature most mutations are neutral, period. It is likely to be more don't cares although actual improvements are unlikely. Good outcomes from random chances are rare but that doesn't mean that bad outcomes must be the dominant component.

Just look at Atomic gardening [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening] - a practice which should be /way/ worse if mutations really did produce bad effects most of the time. Instead the effects were either dud seeds or a few useful byproducts as opposed to 'this grapefruit is now rich in cyanide'.
I understand ; one that hold this opinion must believe that every service that he uses is a pure monopoly then
The ones I’m looking at are straight metal or anodised metal. It isn’t Apple.
Not just for those individuals but it would have spread throughout the gene pool and been impossible to contain.