skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> What a real monopoly is is when there is no consumer choice at all, leading to large corporate profits that hurt consumers at the pricing level.

Well, sure, 100% national market share is obviously a monopoly. But you're also a monopoly if you distort a market (generally markets with less than 3 major players) or have control or distortion over individual markets (you can have a monopoly in NYC but not the US, for example).

I think this obviously applies to telecoms, which often have monopolies over certain areas (and often granted by local government! thanks a lot Philly city council).

I think there's a whole host of bad behavior that's non-monopolistic. That's what I think needs to be cracked down on. Some of these do relate to market share, but I don't think it's as simple as a boolean monopoly / not-monopoly. It's a gradient, and much of the behavior in that gradient should be dealt with. There's often collusion between companies on pricing, or agreements not to compete, etc...
They call it the back margin. Brands buy shelf space, position, pay for offers and promotions, extra payments (effectively a fine) if volume targets are not reached, etc.

Tesco infamously had 24 ways of extracting extra money from suppliers via back margin. The front margin is the traditional agreed buying price.
Offering limited immunity and demanding testimony is standard procedure for grand juries and civil libertarians have been complaining about the way in which this has been abused for years.

The only way out of this sort of thing is making the legal argument the person simply isn't going to testify and the jailing is basically punishment, not coercion (where is considered OK here since it's supposedly not self incrimination). If anyone could considered unwilling to testify, it would be Manning, since she's already served a huge sentence for leaking information.
Ha! When I read your comment I imagined a wonderful life that involved surfing (on the beach) every day for the past thirty years and eventually meeting a friendly community of fellow surfers that liked canned pipeapple.
It was apparently the closed nature of the grand jury. She's happy to testify in public, and claims that all questions that were asked were reiterations of questions that she has answered in other forums, including her court martial.
> the data being asked about in these KBA quizzes is culled from public records

Yesterday, when opening a savings account with a major US financial institution, one of the KBA questions asked for my Zodiac sign. The other two were about a mortgage and the year I was born (±1 year). I do not understand why any competent institution would find these secure and it appalls me that is all the information needed to open an account in my name.

Edit: Here is the screenshot https://i.imgur.com/Mr8gOOA.jpg
When he talks about "little computers," he's talking about the microcomputers of the '70s and '80s, like the IBM PC, Apple II and Macintosh, Commodore 64 and Amiga, etc.

And he wasn't wrong. Those machines were completely different than the "big iron" of the day -- they were single-user, single-tasking systems with no meaningful memory protection or other features to protect the system against poorly written or malicious applications. Microcomputers were supposed to be personal computers, with "personal" in this context meaning that the operator had complete control over 100% of the system's resources, up to and including the ability to shoot themselves in the foot. The big iron world was all about multi-user paradigms like time-sharing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing), so the micro mindset was definitely a radical departure.

The irony, of course, is that the micros ended up eating the world, and then the Internet came along and completely demolished their entire philosophy. It turned out that there's no way to connect a single-user, single-tasking computer to a global public network without it running into fundamental performance and security problems. The two microcomputer OS vendors left standing by the 1990s, Microsoft and Apple, both ended up having to throw out their old systems and spend enormous amounts of time and money building new ones (Windows NT and OS X) that could actually be used practically in the new internetworked world. And, not coincidentally, those new systems looked a lot more like the systems that ran on the old big iron than they looked like the systems that had made the microcomputer revolution. The only way for the "little computers" to survive was to become the "big computers" they had so loudly put up against the wall.
Agreed. I believe it's the same as owning a car. If you own a car and use it regularly, you should probably understand at least the basics of how it operates. In the modern world, everyone is constantly surrounded by computers and software and most people have absolutely no clue about how any of it works. This will become a problem as time rolls onward.
One of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
"Any other" is not "some other". I don't think that's ambiguous, you can't charge more for cash than the cheapest alternative payment method.
How is this not double-jeopardy? Manning already served her term for a Wikileaks-related matter.
My biggest problem with the justice system.

Do any of us really trust our peers?
TensorFlow Dev Summit 2019–ML Roundup
Even in Portland, suburbs are definitely cheaper. For what my house cost, I could get an itty-bitty condo downtown. And it would have a $700/month HOA fee. Only rich people, or young people who are okay blowing over half their income on housing, live downtown.
The main problem with maintaining US nationality is taxes. There are exemptions up to a certain limit, but you still have to file and potentially pay taxes to two countries.
Several are performed by US suppliers. For instance, Apple claims that they enable:

80,000 jobs - direct employment with Apple;

450,000 jobs - indirect employment with their US suppliers;

For more context surrounding Apple's employment numbers, start here: https://www.apple.com/job-creation/
Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19339039.

For a mega-story like this, I feel bad that the karma can't be shared across early submitters. Sorry about that. We're going to do something about this eventually.
Anyone who's flown business or even Premium Economy on long-haul flights knows that this isn't surprising.

Even Premium Economy on Lufthansa is basically what Business Class used to be - wider, bigger seats, no shared armrests, power ports, a large TV, unlimited drinks, food served on real plates with real knives and forks. You do need to share a lav with Economy, though. You even get a kit of an eye mask and other goodies.
I mean, sure, if you have what looks like a simple getter function for temperature that doesn't support negative numbers, represents it as tenths of a degree in ints, and can only be set by a recurring background process, you probably should be commenting that.

Good code doesn't document itself, but bad code with comments also don't document itself, and good code with comments has a surprisingly short half-life of self documenting efficacy.

Nontrivial public classes should include solid comments, along with interesting methods, but you don't need to be commenting a simple getter or a parameterless constructor.
Probably to make the whole process speedier and cheaper for the airline.

You'd have to completely finish boarding for lower classes and then give a decent grace period for first class passengers to just show up at their leisure.

Also first class (and often business) are kinda separated so no one stares you down.

I fly premium economy sometimes and you're the first to board and sit upfront and then you have to watch everybody walking by!

It's a world of difference between premium economy and business, sigh.

Norwegian Air Shuttle had a pretty cool idea with their premium cabin. It's not crazy expensive but the seats are so much better!
Unvaccinated 6-year-old boy was Oregon's first tetanus case in almost 30 years
https://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Guys-Room-Amazing-Scandalous...
Is there much difference between a negative interest rate on a bank account, and holding cash in an economy that experiences inflation?
Good. I prefer paying with my phone/card, but cash should always be an option.
Url changed from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/politics/chelsea-manni..., since the thread that had that URL attracted more comments even though it was posted later.
A phone call would've been better.
She complains that the problem is lax enforcement of existing antitrust laws and her solution is, instead of enforcement of existing antitrust laws, radical new antitrust laws that do not focus on conduct or evidence of consumer harm?

Not only do I think the particular policy is ill-conceived, but the preference for legislation when the entire premise is an assessment that existing law is unenforced rather than defective is even more worrying. And I say that as someone who has up to this point seen Warren as probably the strongest 2020 candidate.
Software engineer made this simple tool to value her stock options
Code doesn't live in isolation. Often we are forced to solve problems that were created a layer below our code. In a way this can lead to unintuitive code as well.

If I do this, I throw in some comments about my reasons to do so.
I used to fly twice per week (round trip, basically every ~3 days, just over 2h each way) for years, mostly coach. Not nearly long haul but I still wonder if that's responsible for the current state of my sanity :). Also I got to witness the shrink of leg room, as a person at 1.95m/6'4". My legs fared a lot worse than my mind.
It frankly sounds like a sociopath's description of empathy. Somebody missing the necessary parts in their brain to be naturally empathetic, describing it based on perceivable symptoms, assuming there is some risk/reward ratio with game theory going on underneath.
In addition to temperature, dominant construction materials could have an effect. For example stone is both fairly unforgiving to feet as well as feeling much colder at the same temperature compared to wood, bamboo, etc.
This is true in all west coast cities I've been to, as well. It gets dramatically more expensive the closer you get to downtown. Having a condo down there would cost me twice as much as I paid for my large house in the 'burbs.
Amazon isn't located in SV either.
I wonder if this isn't why Moore's Law appears to be slowing down. Maybe there are still huge gains to be made but the economic drive is not there.
And Flight Simulator was from subLOGIC in Champaign, Illinois, IIRC.
I find that many American families cargo-cult the "no shoes inside" rule but without the necessary home infrastructure to support it.

A pile of shoes at the garage entrance with no bench to put them on, or expecting you to remove shoes on the wet doormat before stepping onto the carpet inside.

In Japan there seemed to be an entire cottage industry of shoe horns, benches, stools, slippers, and mats designed for the custom. I'd need that in my home before I went all-in with no shoes.
While you are here, can you discuss the noise level?
Ask HN: Do you use Instagram? And if yes – what for?
They're great for analogies, for one.
Dry heat is fine. It's the humidity that makes heat miserable.
For being unwilling to testify non-publicly. She's entirely willing to testify publicly. It's a strange hill to make a stand on, but I suppose that's her call to make.
How is that "superficial"? You listed some of the most economically and culturally impactful factors for a settlement.
On the internet it's hard to tell if that is real enthusiasm or sarcasm.

Enthusiasm: Telco cartels need more oversight, make them government run, so they are beholden to the people. They serve themselves at a nice profit at everyone's expense, but internet communications have become so intertwined in culture, commerce, national security, that there really is no reason they shouldn't be part of the government apparatus.

Sarcasm: Government run telcos will cost taxpayers even more money, work worse than they do now, and increase government pensions to be payed out. US Internet will stagnate as a result of people getting into telco as a cushy government position.
its a little more than just Basics, but youre right its a ton of clothing.

https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=17602470011

https://www.recode.net/2018/4/7/17208804/amazon-private-labe...
This is unlikely because employers think factory labor is unsuitable for Tibetans or Uyghurs, but instead due to how the nation they're situated in thinks of them.
First class is probably all nice and cool but given how comfortable business is, I couldn't care less about any fancier service. Just give me flat bed on 13h flight so I can sleep! Bigger screen? Don't care. Fancier food? Don't care.

That said, I'd love to one day fly the first class where they have a bar. Would be cool to sip cocktails and chat with fellow travelers!
Exit row seats should meet your needs.

Check on seatguru before booking any flights.
Keep in mind that a day of work is charged between 1300 and 1500 USD to the client. So if you add an extra day of rest on each side there's not much difference
1-4 people aren’t flying a plane that burns 400/hour. A Citation burns 160/hour and holds a heck of a lot more than 1-4. A Cirrus jet — perfect for 1-4 passengers burns 47 gallons per hour. Even a Gulfstream V burns 370 per hour and holds 12-16 passengers.
Anecdotally by the same judge who ordered a $5,000-a-day fine to Ladar Levison from Lavabit, back in 2013, until he provided the SSL private keys in electronic form (originally he printed them in 11 pages of 4pt text).
I think economic forces are party to blame for this. Business class has gotten so much cheaper and better these days that it's hard to justify paying for first. The amount of competition among airlines trying to outdo each other in the quality of business class has led to really high quality products and low fares.

As a result, airlines are struggling to sell first. First cabins are regularly half empty. I've had many flights where I'm the only passenger in the first cabin, or with every guest having a separate seat for lounging and sleeping given low load factors.

A decade ago, business class wasn't so good, with angle-flat or recliner seats. Even when the seats were lie-flat, they were seldom private and with direct aisle access. It wasn't a comfortable experience, so for those who could, going first made sense.

This has led many airlines to reduce first class, or ditch it entirely. Singapore's first class product went from 8 seats to 4. United killed its GlobalFirst product entirely. American hardly has any routes. Malaysian is ditching first. In the western hemisphere, the only airlines with a real first class product left are Swiss, Lufthansa, and Air France. British and American also offer first, though have a poor non-competitive product.

Asia and the middle east is the only place left where first class is alive and strong. (The lands of the nouveau riche)
I posted this in the article about NYC going cashless as well. The thing that I find interesting is the lack of septa key being mentioned.

Septa key is their new transit card. But it can act as a debit card with money loaded via cash. No bank account required. Caveat that the kiosks aren't spread every where. But they are in enough locations.

Despite that I have barely heard mention of it during this cashless discussion. The whole crux is allowing underprivileged to access stores. Which was one of the reasons for the Key card as well.

https://billypenn.com/2018/08/28/your-septa-key-is-now-a-deb...
2 hour flight, gotta be at the airport 90 minutes early, airport's an hour away...pretty soon it's nearly the same amount of time to fly (not really, but it can be close sometimes)...when yo udrive you leave when you want, have no luggage restrictions, and the food's as good as you want to pay for.

No in-flight drinking, though.
> The story demonstrates why promoting competition is so important: it allows new, groundbreaking companies to grow and thrive — which pushes everyone in the marketplace to offer better products and services. Aren’t we all glad that now we have the option of using Google instead of being stuck with Bing?

It's dishonest to suggest that the outcome of the US vs Microsoft somehow paved the way for Google. I would argue it was pretty non-consequential but looms in the public conscious.

From wikipedia:

> On November 2, 2001, the DOJ reached an agreement with Microsoft to settle the case. The proposed settlement required Microsoft to share its application programming interfaces with third-party companies and appoint a panel of three people who would have full access to Microsoft's systems, records, and source code for five years in order to ensure compliance.[29] However, the DOJ did not require Microsoft to change any of its code nor prevent Microsoft from tying other software with Windows in the future
...
> Law professor Eben Moglen noted that the way Microsoft was required to disclose its APIs and protocols was useful only for “interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product”, not for implementing support of those APIs and protocols in any competing operating system.
I could probably be included in the list of people who eat the same thing every day (at least for breakfast and lunch), and from what I've seen, it seems many of my coworkers are the same.

As for why? Well personally, it's probably a mix of the following:

1. It's easy to not have to worry about what you're going to eat and what it'll taste like.

2. Choices of places to eat are limited in many areas. This isn't so much the case now, but it certainly was for some roles in the past, where the office was pretty much nowhere near a major shopping area/main street.

In that case, it was 'eat the one thing you find palatable in the canteen or get a train/bus/drive/cycle to a place with shops'.

3. My personal tastes are very plain and somewhat picky, to the point of disliking pretty much anything with extra sauce, relish, mayonnaise, spices, etc.

Either way, all of these things are likely reasons for many others too. Many people on the autistic spectrum for instance are rather picky in terms of favoured foods, and will generally stick to the same meals as much as possible. Many people are based in locations where choice is limited/a hassle in general.

And there are other reasons too:

1. Some people like having a routine (as mentioned in other comments)
2. Some like to know exactly how healthy their diet is, which is easier with a limited choice (also mentioned in other comments)
3. Quite a few people probably prefer eating at their desk while browsing Hacker News/Reddit/YouTube/the internet in general, which precludes going far for shopping.
4. If you're a workaholic, it's easier to stick with one type of meal rather than having to prepare different ones/go shopping.

There are many reasons really.
With wikileaks coordination with Trump and Co.... I gotta wonder if folks who gave wikileaks info earlier on regret who they gave the information to.

Leaking to some group on the internet, you really don't know their motives / affiliation or if it might change.
I fly coach for work. One time I got upgraded (by one of the C-Level people with a ton of frequent flyer points card) be to business class. Oh my god! So much room. I kind of wish it had not happened. Now coach feels worse than before. Lol. need to find a better company.
Why Switching to AWS May Cost You
>It was completely liberating in a way that's hard to describe.

That's very interesting. I can imagine what you mean, because even though I take off my shoes only once or twice during the day (and at night to sleep, of course), I feel a lot of freedom or relief when I do. Washing the feet and then letting them get some air, does feel quite good, although you stop noticing it after a while, until you put shoes on again for some time and then take them off again.
I can see why recruiters and business-owners prefer it; it basically implies "Person X has at least this much discipline to get through this degree".

However, a sort of consequence of this is you create a sort of inadvertent filter of "normal" people, e.g. the people who passed the classes designed around them.
Yeah, but that's complete baloney. I understand Manning wants to keep her beliefs or whatever, but there's no law protecting that kind of behavior.

The 5th Amendment is against SELF-incrimination. The US Government is 100% allowed to force you to spill your secrets about other people.

Furthermore, not all details of a case is made to a jury. Only the details deemed acceptable (ie: impermissible evidence is kept away from the Jury, to help provide a more fair trial). So its not like everything should be public.

------------

Does anyone have a general idea for what is going on exactly? Like what this Wikileaks case is even about? I feel like Manning is a red-herring, irrelevant to the main story. Its like Manning is the "clickbait" portion of the article, but nothing else is elaborated upon.
> In short, the author should work through a few feelings that are biasing their perspective on this matter.

You're confusing "empathy the emotion" with "empathic reasoning", which is a form of generalized empathy. Clearly the article is about the emotion which has all the downsides listed.
Corporations should pay more of the costs of training. They get about as much benefit as we do. In the case of Apple, the company gets far more benefit from each employee than each employee gets, from a nominal perspective ($400k profit per employee).

Why do we pay all of our own training costs at this point, I have no idea why. I think that the workers of America deserve the same as the workers from Europe.
If Twitter decides tomorrow to ban the right-wing from their platform. They absolutely legally can. If you watch the recent Joe Rogan video with Tim Pool and Jack Dorsey. They didn't realize they were slowly banning the right-wing and allowing left-wing terrorists to stay on Twitter. They absolutely didn't realize they were doing this and they are going to look at fixing this.

The government however could come in and simply make it that you have freedom of speech on social media. So if Twitter bans someone for saying "a man cannot be a woman" that person can sue them.

The democrats will NOT do this however, the current censorship on social media is benefiting the left-wing.
>So a $2000 computer with 8 cores that lasts 4 years + $500 for power/year + $500 for support/year is $1500/year or $0.17/hour. That's $0.021/core/hour, and the difference is a small amount of profit for Amazon and a buffer for when the CPU is idle.

The other factor is power. That $500 for power for a year won't be $500 if the CPU is running full-tilt all the time, it'll be much more. Modern CPUs are designed to be power-efficient when idle, and then be able to perform many computations quickly when demanded, even if this actually exceeds the hardware's ability to dissipate heat (in which case the CPU throttles itself to avoid overheating). For computers used interactively by people (i.e., laptops, desktops, but not servers), the workload tends to be extremely bursty, with the CPU doing nearly nothing most of the time waiting for the user to do something, and then suddenly having to do a lot of work quickly when demanded (e.g., rendering a bloated webpage or watching a video).

In short, CPU time isn't just being "wasted"; modern CPUs are explicitly designed to be used this way.
Although compared to reaching space it's relatively simple to prevent other species from ever reaching space, as the Homo Sapiens may well have done.
Can we just shut down equifax already?
Reno is really small, but agree it's too bad Vegas hasn't become a major hub for more companies. The best thing is there are so many cheap direct flights, especially during the weekday. And only ~1hr from SFO and less than that from LAX...