skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> If a caller demanded to know the rep's HIV status

This seems very far from the OP's thesis that in our culture there is a normalization of lying by people trying to sell us things.
Io's Volcanic Activity from Time Domain Adaptive Optics Observations: 2013–2018
I personally agree and would have been curious myself.

That said, someone with less experience might have just said ‘oh cool, I can be clever and reduce our BOM’ and not given much thought to it.
>Cost only goes up and up when engineers go overboard with "clever" Ruby magic... which is human error, don't blame the tool.

I've only used a few languages in production for my non-developer job, but I've noticed very different frequencies of "clever" code between them.

R: This is my primary language. I love it, but it almost encourages clever coding. There are 10 ways to do any task without even touching third-party packages.

Python: My secondary language at work. Clever coding is definitely possible in Python, but the language's syntax makes it easy to spot. Detection isn't as good as prevention but it's better than nothing.

(I also grudgingly use SAS, but won't waste my time looking for ways it encourages clear coding.)
Ugh. I really want to upgrade my 2014 mba. Four gigs of ram doesn’t cut it anymore and my eyes have grown tired of the screen. I love the size, battery life, I just don’t know what to get next.
Building nuclear power plants is something we should be doing, however simply constructing enough nuclear power plants to replace all fossil fuel plants would create an insane amount of carbon dioxide before they even go online.

Creating cement/concrete is one of the primary sources of CO2 emissions - producing a cubic yard of concrete (about 3900 lbs) is responsible for emitting about 400 lbs of CO2. Of course then you have to factor in all of the CO2 produced for manufacturing the structural steel, the fossil fuels that go into all the plastics and wiring, etc.
Yes! I have a 2011 MBP that is going strong. I never had a problem with it. My 2018 MBP from work has been switched out twice because of the keyboard and the screen just going dead.
I think it's more

"Hello, it's [fake name they can't quite pronounce chosen to be a common UK name] calling you from [company they don't work for but who ordered a phone advertising service], it's lovely weather here in [small UK town they mispronounced badly and where it's terrible weather today], how are you today? ... Great, we are calling about your [account with company you don't have an account with] ..."

It's basically all lies, and all unnecessary, trying to win some trust as part of a marketing exercise. Bleurgh.
After months of suffering with this, with an out warranty 15" MBP 2016 that was relegated to desk duty with an external keyboard, I heard about this program. I made an Apple Store appointment for the next day (a Tuesday); they checked it, warned me it could be a week or more because of a holiday that week. Thursday morning I had a call that it was ready. Total cost: $0 (according to the invoice the parts were over $800, including a mainboard replacement to fix a loose USB-C port). It was a basically new machine when I got it back.

I'm still sore over this kbd design, but its otherwise been a good laptop and their no-questions-asked handling of it was great.
E-scooters: a transport 'tsunami' flooding cities worldwide
Nah, those with an IVR should be summarily shot.

Kidding, of course. Mostly.

Disclosing IVRs before purchase would be a good start. Preferably with a legally mandated recognizable logo that customers can quickly learn to associate with terrible support.
This. I have 7 distinct repairs so far. Every one of these involves a back up, checking in at the Apple Store, explaining what the issue is, having the staff run “diagnostics” only to find nothing wrong with the computer, my having to tell them that this has become routine and that I want them to take my computer in for repairs, having them call me back a few days later with a repaired computer, retrieving the computer, reinstalling the image.

I just want my money back.
Thanks for sharing, nothing groundbreaking, but the general principle is there. Modern internet is all about freedom, and sharing, access to info and so own, Wikipedia is a great example of how progressive internet could be. Then there's Facebook that will go miles to access users data, and Trump is tweeting nonsense. I get why people are angry with the state of internet atm.
Do you have an alternative? most of Paypal's conduct around these cases is defined by the regulations. If you think Paypal is bad, try Skrill (which I guess is the EU Paypal). And no, I don't mean actually try it, i still have $700 locked in there which i believe they're taxing for inactivity, because all they have for ID verification is an automated 3rd party system.

What i would love is for these services to require ID for opening account, not after depositing over $250 (when you have skin in the game and have to verify your id or lose the $), they won't though because they would have a 95% churn rate on registration.
Not Scotland though :)
Why don't we assert the property rights of the individual by defining one's personal data to be their rightful intellectual property?
Show HN: A better zip decoder
If the TV manufacturer wanted to implement this mechanism, they wouldn't need DoH to do it. They could just put the ads right on online.movies.example.com and use TLS there. Any kind of ad-blocking mechanism based on DNS is trivially bypassable.

Suggesting that we should weaken encryption/privacy because some people plan to use it in ways that we don't like is just not a viable option. It's exactly the argument that governments are trying to use to mandate backdoors in our chat services. With encryption, it's all or nothing.
Fooling Production-Grade Classification Systems with Adversarial Traffic Signs [pdf]
The Layered Cybersecurity Model for Small and Medium Business Protection
Huawei's Back Doors
I do think there is another side to this though. I think equally bad for the organization are people who are entirely supportive of huge mistakes:

- Encouraging people to try any technology they want in an important, tight-deadline project

- Telling people there's "No wrong way" to do things

- Spending tons of time mentoring people who show little/no-motivation and low rate-of-learning

- Refusing to perform a root-cause-analysis because it might seem to indirectly indicate blame

- Inviting unknowledgeable people who talk to much to meetings above their station for "inclusion"

- Not correcting the spread of misinformation
I'm teaching programming for beginners & non-programmers on YouTube with Flutter and JavaScript. I'm trying to expose my pupils to slightly lesser known concepts, paradigms with the focus on functional programming, Reactive extensions etc. I have plans to do Clojure or Common Lisp next.

I'm also doing some Emacs related videos, presenting a single concept each time. I'm a big fan of Doom Emacs.

https://www.youtube.com/zaiste
> Just to be entirely clear: While a cheap cable may be wrong, good (i.e. fully featured) cables will always work in all combinations.

Per the spec, yes. But devices may have hardware design issues making this untrue, as in the article. As I understand it, the Pi 4 works correctly with cheaper cables, but not with more expensive ones:

> When combined with more capable cables (handling SuperSpeed data, or 5A power) this configuration will cause compliant chargers to provide 0V instead of 5V to the Pi.
Yemen hasn't invested properly because of other pressing concerns. Yemen is a reminder of the past, Africa is a glimps of the future. It is not all terrible.
Thank you! The mechanics sort of work ok, but it needs graphics and animation now. It is definitely good Javascript practice - I look at the early code when starting it, and think Ugh
What if aliens came down and probed your butt?

You're throwing about ridiculously obscure edge cases that don't really matter to the point at hand.
How to Do Great Research
How does ripgrep compare to silversearcher-ag for performance?
It is even worse when there are no Apple Store nerby, only Apple certified resellers, which is my case.

The last time I had a problem with my MBP's screen, it took almost a month to be fixed.

A failing keyboard is enough reason for me to wait for a version which they fix all these issues. Even if it only breaks for a "small percentage of users", it wouldn't be nice to wait almost a month without my work machine...
I’m going against the consensus here, but why was this guy so concerned about the reversal of a transaction that never should have happened in the first place? It wasn’t his money. Someone at PayPal obviously manually reversed the transaction when they realized the mistake. These things happen.

I’ve been using PayPal personally for 10+ years without issue. I also own a company and have processed hundreds of transactions and withdrawals through a business account with them without a single problem. I’m not saying that dealing with PayPal is without risks, but it’s also possible that we’re hearing a vocal minority here.
Unleashing the cold virus to kill cancer
I had a similar experience. Struggled with several keys either "not pressing" or "double pressing". After a while I took it in, they gave me an estimate of 5 days for repair, and called me after 4. No charge, no fee, no questions. Once I got used to the butterfly keys I didn't mind the low travel distance, and now that my keyboard is in proper working order, I have no issues with it. Still wish there was an escape key though...
It always strikes me as strange that the USAF is still regularly running such old planes as the C-135 (the most recent of which was produced over five decades ago). I guess they don't care about fuel efficiency like the airlines do? Maybe that's the real reason? I get that the mid-air refueling planes have a lot of specialized hardware on them, but most of them are just used for moving people and equipment around. Why not buy an off-the-shelf modern cargo airplane? You'll increase safety and fuel efficiency dramatically. A 767F is better than a C-135 in a multitude of ways, including better fuel efficiency, higher cargo capacity, shorter runways, etc.
And when you do, please consider limiting the width of your content to 60-80 characters.
The first two paragraphs of this story from "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" illustrate your point well:

> The first time I was in Las Vegas I sat down and figured out the odds for everything, and I discovered that the odds for the crap table were something like .493. If I bet a dollar, it would only cost me 1.4 cents. So I thought to myself, "Why am I so reluctant to bet? It hardly costs anything!"

So I started betting, and right away I lost five dollars in succession--one, two, three, four, five. I was supposed to be out only seven cents; instead, I was five dollars behind! I've never gambled since then (with my own money, that is). I'm very lucky that I started off losing.

One time I was eating lunch with one of the show girls. It was a quiet time in the afternoon; there was not the usual big bustle, and she said, "See that man over there, walking across the lawn? That's Nick the Greek. He's a professional gambler."

Now I knew damn well what all the odds were in Las Vegas, so I said, "How can he be a professional gambler?"

"I'll call him over."

Nick came over and she introduced us. "Marilyn tells me that you're a professional gambler."

"That's correct."

"Well, I'd like to know how it's possible to make your living gambling, because at the table, the odds are .493."

"You're right," he said, "and I'll explain it to you. I don't bet on the table, or things like that. I only bet when the odds are in my favor."

"Huh? When are the odds ever in your favor?" I asked incredulously.

"It's really quite easy," he said. "I'm standing around a table, when some guy says, 'It's comin' out nine! It's gotta be a nine!' The guy's excited; he thinks it's going to be a nine, and he wants to bet. Now I know the odds for all the numbers inside out, so I say to him, 'I'll bet you four to three it's not a nine,' and I win in the long run. I don't bet on the table; instead, I bet with people around the table who have prejudices--superstitious ideas about lucky numbers."

Nick continued: "Now that I've got a reputation, it's even easier, because people will bet with me even when they know the odds aren't very good, just to have the chance of telling the story, if they win, of how they beat Nick the Greek. So I really do make a living gambling, and it's wonderful!"

So Nick the Greek was really an educated character. He was a very nice and engaging man. I thanked him for the explanation; now I understood it. I have to understand the world, you see.
Naturalize Now – Not Later
Why is this being reposted? Has something changed recently or is it the same as before? I'd like them to extend it beyond four years to be honest, would go some way towards making up for this sh design
Because the browser language setting is very often wrong. Not many users know how to configure it.
> “A decentralized internet, a freer internet, that’s what led to the internet being created in the place,”

What Facebook did to MySpace, may happen to Facebook soon when a good decentralized social network pops up.
Add 'Show HN' to the submission title and it will go into the https://news.ycombinator.com/show page dedicated to show off new projects. Early, unfinished projects are fine as long as it's something users can try and play with (blog posts, signup pages, fundraisers can't be tried).

My feedback is the header uses too much whitespace. On a 27-inch (3840 x 2160) monitor I need to scroll down to see a project.

There's need on HN: "Ask HN: Who is seeking a cofounder?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266463 (160 comments)
Companies like Dell and Lenovo just ships fault element if it's possible to replace it yourself and in many cases it is possible to replace keyboard without to much hustle. Not to mention their on premise warranty which usually cost somewhere around AppleCare plan. If I am working on a hardware, 9 hours a day 5,6 or even 7 days a week I don't have time to sit in Apple store for hours. Even worst, in country where I am currently there is no Apple stores, period and that's in the middle of Europe not some remote island somewhere on Pacific. Here there are only third party services accredited by Apple to do fixed and they always say "14 working days for fix" which is unacceptable.
>What about nitrogen?

There are several trees are nitrogen fixing species, they're a pretty important part of permaculture. Some of the mycorrhizal networks that exist in many forests also fix nitrogen. Also, some species like pine trees get a lot of their nitrogen from endophytes living in their tissue.
Really I would say at this point any Turing test that can catch bots 100% of the time will also incorrectly identify some portion of people as bots.
I went the same route. Arch -> Void -> FreeBSD -> OpenBSD -> Debian Stretch (no desktop, just xorg + i3).

I love it. No more random updates breaking things like in Arch. I can install things relatively smoothly and get them running quickly. If I really do need the latest version of something I can still install from source. Etc.

I just want to work on things, not configure things endlessly and deal with random bugs :-)
2017 Macbook Air models are great, last gen before butterfly keys
If they put all of the climate change money into a pot we have enough. Politics decides it is more important to give to a company or class of people in the name of climate change.
> Knowing that taking the legal route would have been way more costly than the amount of the transaction

That reads like a "no" to me.
Netflix – Bringing Rich Experiences to Memory-Constrained TV Devices
Interesting, but I'm not sure that there's much to this. Just because your response is "socially oriented" doesn't mean you're productively dealing with a stressful situation.

I mean, we've all been involved in endless meetings at work that were supposedly about dealing with some stressful challenge or other, but in fact did nothing except flatter the boss and drive the rest of us even crazier - as opposed to letting us get stuff done and directly address the issue. The "social" response to stress is just like that.
No, because of the same consideration: The amount at stake was just too small to justify a court battle.

But I really think that the banking regulator should take note of user stories such as the ones that are regularly all over HN and get to the bottom of it. After all PayPal, at least in Europe, is subject to the same regulation as other banks and payment processors. And if that's not the job of a banking regulator to take note when a financial institution has such shitty processes that consumers regularly suffer damages, then I don't know what is.

Also, maybe a private lawfirm should put together a class action or something on the basis of all those user stories. I realize that cases tend to be rather different to each other, but I'm finding it hard to believe that there aren't some things that happen so frequently and so systematically that it should be easy to take a stab at in court on behalf of a larger group of users who have suffered damages.
China's tech sector slows down, VC falls by half
Why buying your own solar panels may finally make sense
The other thing is that "winnings" feel like a different type of money. If I win at the casino, I cannot wait to spend that new money. Whether it's buying my friends drinks or buying some item that I wouldn't buy with regular money.

It's really fun to spend money that you feel just fell from the sky. If you employ the right strategy you will still come out ahead 40-45% of the time, and those times can be quite memorable and fun.

You will definitely take losses in the long run but if you play well within your means, they won't have any impact on your life.
Is assholish-ness a sign of a good founder? Do incubators use this as a secret criterion for admission? Ultimately can we write a word2vec implementation that produces an ‘asshole score’ based on a personal essay or job description as?
I agree with Larry about abuse by Facebook and Twitter.

I also strongly encourage him to look at state of wikipedia moderations. Specially in a country like India. Lot of pages related to political content is moderated by people who are deeply partisan and have no respect for facts.
We had ConEd workers come to our schools in Ohio in the 80-90's to educate us about how they had to spend millions of dollars and hundreds of man-hours annually power washing the mussels out of the lakewater cooling pools and pipes at the Fermi II nuclear plant between Detroit and Toledo because the mussels prefer the warmer waters.

I cursed and still cursed stepping on the sharp mussel shells lining the now clean and swimmable beach waters of Lake Michigan. Decades of misplaced vitriol.

https://goo.gl/maps/VrWdpomeGvXZcFsJ6
> But devices may have hardware design issues making this untrue, as in the article.

Yes, but defective devices do not really go into the USB-C complexity consideration. They go into the trash bin.

We can't blame USB-C for people disregarding the spec, especially as this is not a hard part of it. We can only blame it for the fact that we do have different "classes" of devices, where the main way out is to only get the highest class.

Having run all-USB-C (and not using Apple products) for a few years now, I have never myself bumped into a product that was defective. Everything always worked as advertised.
Sony’s new noise-canceling wireless earbuds are its best answer to AirPods yet
Fake Samsung Firmware Update Installed 10M Times by Scammed Android Users
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We are looking for polyglot engineers that are self motivated and keen to explore new ways of doing things. We work in small sub-teams primarily in Java, Go, Python and Scala but have also been known to code in JavaScript when needed; we’re motivated by customer impact and the desire to build systems that solve real customer problems.

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Ok! this is least they could do, and it's something that I'd appreciate and expect from a company like Apple. Finally!

They could really recognize this problem earlier.
People also glower and complain when you play perfect strategy at blackjack ... most people are utter shit at odds and statistics in a distracting environment like a casino.
Why can’t they just reduce supply for short distance flights, rather than trying to decrease demand?
Yes, this is a better point than the one the OP was making: while everyone can agree assholes are bad it's not always easy to spot them.

Similar to your experience: I had a colleague who was extremely negative. Everything was horrible, every manager was stupid. Nothing was done right, ever. We never worked on the right project and if we did we never did it the right way, according to him.

I think he just valued his role as a contrarian: if everyone else was wrong all the time it meant he was always right, that he knew better and more than the rest of us.

I used to tell him if he hated things that he should suggest better ways of doing things to management or, if all else fails, find a new role or new company that would make him happier.

But he never did, he just liked complaining and/or making others miserable. But he didn't walk around with a sign that said "asshole" -- he could be polite and friendly and well-adjusted during the normal course of a work day.

Then what do you do? Do you engage the person and argue with them? Ignore them and hope the problem goes away? We all know toxic coworkers exist, the question is how to change their behavior or deal with them effectively.
years ago, when Wells Fargo first introduced the ability to deposit a check via their mobile app, there was apparently a bug that caused it to sometimes deposit the same check twice.

so, i deposited a $1000 paycheck (was working for a local guy, fixing computers) once and did NOT notice that i actually ended up with $2000 in my account. This went on for at least three months, when all of a sudden I lose $1000 from my account. Apparently Wells Fargo had figured out about the bug and found all the accounts that had gotten double deposits and 'fixed it'.

All without notifying me.

...I don't bank with Wells Fargo any more.
* Safer Nuclear Reactor Designs Are on the Way

Whether actual reactors get built is another matter.