skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's like saying a gardener shouldn't worry about weeds because those who don't like them needn't look at them. The trouble is that if one allows such discussion, it spreads and takes over. It doesn't just stay static. Worse, it has feedback effects. For example it drives away users who find such rhetoric boring and lame, and attracts users who enjoy heated repetition. We want the first group here more than the second, because the first makes HN more interesting (higher signal) while the second makes it less interesting (higher noise).

We can't be passive about such effects. They can quickly develop into a vicious circle that destroys the site. HN will only survive as an interesting place for thoughtful people if it avoids that, so this is an existential issue and why I (we) moderate that way. I'm sad you think I've destroyed Hacker News, but would submit that if moderation doesn't evolve as a community grows, one ends up with the default dynamic of internet forums: decay followed by heat death. HN was actually started as an experiment in avoiding that dynamic [1], so in my view we're aligned with its original spirit when we do this. "Our hypothesis is that by making a conscious effort to resist decline, we can keep it from happening." [2]

You're right that the threads about global warming are almost as repetitive. The same logic applies to those.

Really though, if you want to make a case about the quality of the site, you shouldn't be posting things like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20419652.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
Reintroduce Free Competition in Currency Act
If the money spent on that program remains int eh country then it won't be a waste, the country will developer high technology and experts. If they say would pay for US to send stuff to space all those money would make rich a few US citizens.
Long article, and it doesn’t address what I consider the biggest problem: what incentive do people hundreds of years in the future have to bring me back to life? Maybe if I was Einstein, they would want me to help solve scientific problems. But I’m not. Maybe the first few people brought back will be done for the scientific breakthrough - but they will start with the easy ones, which means people that died ten years before being brought back. Again, not me. After that, why bring some random nobody back to life?
There are legitimate concerns about some drugs being overprescribed and others being underprescribed. But this article doesn't really she'd much light on it.

Are some medicines probably overprescribed? Sure. Are some medicines underprescribed? Definitely.

For most medicines are there people who could benefit from taking it and aren't while simultaneously there are people who would benefit from stopping the medicine? Almost assuredly.

And medical research is what we do to try to answer these questions in ways that are helpful.
No organization had ever put an orbiter around Mars in their first try. Until Mars Orbiter Mission of ISRO in 2014. I wouldn't rule them out. ;)

https://www.isro.gov.in/mars-orbiter-mission-completes-1000-...
Similar argument can be made about homelessness in San Francisco and other cities. Poverty elimination and tech progress can go hand in hand. In fact, it can help: https://homelessness.paulallen.com/
Speaking as an artist...

The tone from the beginning (at least in Chapter 0) struck me as what I might class "fey wankery". The wry style gets into the way of communication. Is there some misapprehension amongst STEM explainers that people who are less familiar with maths need to be treated like skittish, possibly mentally-challenged deer?

Or is it a nod to Socratic dialogue except one of two is a moron?

Then Chapter One leaps into rational numbers, set theory and fractions and commits the usual errors: asymptotic curve into complexity, no history, no vivid metaphorical visualisations and (a personal peeve) no historical or causal explanations.

Chapter One literally starts with a question ("What are numbers?") and does not ever answer it. You can count them, some of them are natural (what does that mean?), you can perform operations on them. But what are they, Professor Kleitman? An abstract concept that can be derived from our ability to discern a first order similarity between both similar and dissimilar objects? Is it too vast a question for a introduction to calculus? Then don't use the question in your section header.

Operations? "There are addition, subtraction, multiplication and division." Why? Why isn't there redition? What's redition? I don't know, it's an operation I made up, but you seem to have plucked four relations between natural numbers from the air and asked me to assume that's acceptable.

The text continues in similar, tedious terms, walking us through the basics on stepping stones of assumption and unearned trust.

Educating beginners and "artists" doesn't require you to speak to us like five year olds. Take a leaf from Feynman or Fuller's books and talk to us like adults but do the work in creating vibrant metaphor.

Just my opinion and apologies to Professor Kleitman.

To end on a positive note, the opening pages of Gilbert Strang's book, linked by another poster here, were much more effective in conceptualising the need for and use of calculus by anchoring it in a strong metaphorical example.

In barely a page or two, I understand a relationship between velocity and distance - and that time is involved - and how that relationship can be geometrically envisioned.

Further, I'm already pondering how one might deal with a more realistic car journey with a variable velocity, something that calculus will address later on.

The difference? No infantilisation; instead a clear and applicable metaphorical example.
For writing complete programs I'd be inclined to agree that Rust could do pretty much everything Go could do. However, I'd be inclined to say the reverse is not always true although in the vast majority of circumstances it will be.
And nobody cancelled to move to airbus because they're just as backlogged.

You must have missed this news:
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/saudi-airline...
Looks like he's a Yahoo finance writer.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/congressional-leaders-drafted...
Clickable: https://tennisgrandslams.github.io/
MCAS is not essential. It exist to make the airplane behave like the older B737.
How do illegal drugs convert to “money” and “power”?

(Apart from the US where opiate manufacturers are big lobbyists and some weed could both strip you of your right to vote and put you in a for-profit prison. The US is an outlier here)
Ask HN: Which self-monitor strategies do you use to improve performance?
I used a simple excel sheet to monitor my physical activities and had quite some success with it. But now I want to take it a step further and monitor more complex behavior such as software development and business decision making. I want to use the recorded data to reflect on it and learn form it in an efficient way to become more efficient in software development and make better business decisions.
So to break it down in more specific questions:
1. how do you monitor your activities (screen recording, journals, ...)?
2. how do you learn from the data?
3. When do you process/learn from the recorded data (every day, after a task is accomplished, ...)?
>Using the same method for drug reform is not tone deaf.

Nobody is saying that using the same methods is tone deaf. Tone deafness is an insensitivity the nuances of marginalized groups. It's like saying we should fight systemic racism with the persistence of a field of laborers. The language is tone deaf to historical oppression. The message is right but the tone is way off.

I'm trying to be polite about this, but maybe if you were screamed at in the streets as a blight on society for being gay, you would understand how language like "drug addicts should 'come out of the closet' so that we can treat addiction" (paraphrased, but accurate) is insensitive to gays who were/are treated like social illnesses.
I don't get the clicky keys for the sound, personally. For me, it means that I don't have to bottom out the key to know that a key press has happened and I like having the sharp click. This is very nice for me, as I have reoccurring tendonitis in my wrist and the tendons that connect my fingers. That and the fact that I play organ, where you're supposed to press the key the absolute minimum to get the sound out.

Also it just feels nicer to me.

Then again, I haven't spent an insane amount of money on a keyboard. My work keyboard is a Red Dragon 10 keyless with Cherry MX blues (what you think of with clicky keyboards), one of the cheapest you can get on Amazon at around $25. Definitely worth the money, and in all honesty not a whole lot louder than the OEM keyboards some of my co-workers use (probably because I don't bottom out the keys).
Taking opioids for pain may make it harder to find primary care, study finds
Sorry, I meant the southern United States. What is the term for when you're talking on the Internet and forget that you might be talking to someone halfway around the world?
this is fantastic.
> Why not work a second job instead of playing video games?

No it's more like why not work for yourself instead of working for someone else, for some part of your time. Educate yourself. If you work for someone else you get paid but really you are working towards the goals of whoever pays you. Work towards your own goals instead.

But if your goal is to visit all virtual galaxies in a single game produced by some specific game company ask yourself isn't there anything more worthwhile I can accomplish in 10 years?

Relaxation is of course important but it is important in order to restore our strength to work on the real challenges in our life. Games are great just like amusement parks are great. Coney Island Baby!
The United States had plenty of homeless people when we went to the moon, perhaps we shouldn’t have?
Inspiration is a scarce commodity in our world. Going to the moon is one of the most potent sources of inspiration we have. There are countless stories of American engineers and scientists who can pinpoint their interest in STEM to the day they watched their people transcend our world and visit the stars. The net output of those people probably more than paid for the cost of the space missions.
Well he certainly wouldn't have a sore throat anymore.
Useful reddit page with links to all the livestreams (at least 4), timeline of updates, point form mission details

https://old.reddit.com/r/ISRO/comments/ccbpvm/gslv_mk_iii_m1...
You can fix nitrogen with an electric arc. Using natural gas is way cheaper of course. But cheap enough electricity means you can have nitrogen fertilizer (and nuclear for example, fraught as it might be, is cheap enough).
I won't get into one until I'm satisfied that there's both a technical fix AND pilot retraining. I currently don't expect both to ever happen.
In the past, I was bearish on hybrids. They seemed overcomplicated and ineffectual.

After having driven one for a while, I've done a complete 180. The fact is, they're a perfect interim solution which really brings 'the best of both worlds'. One thing I wasn't expecting was how the system trains me to drive differently and minimize wasteful fuel use-- something that simply doesn't exist in non-hybrids. I think they make even more sense for large freight trucks, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of those.

In the U.S., more than half the top-selling vehicles are pure-ICE trucks or SUVs, and I would bet the majority of people buying them don't have a sensible use case. There is plenty of room for hybrids to make a difference. When you can get the same or better performance for half the fuel (or less), it's a no-brainer, and the market will eventually catch up to that.
This just reminded me to cancel postmates unlimited. I was very annoyed they had a large service fee after lying about free delivery.

Canceling was very easy (a credit to postmastes). They even had a "why are you canceling option" that said "because I am still being charged a fee on my order." Which I selected of course.
Just a note: Chandrayaan-2 has Muthyya Vanitha as Project Director and Ritu Karidhal as Mission Director. This is the first time in ISRO a woman is a Project Director. According to ISRO Chairman - 30% of team are women.

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/trends/chandrayaan-2-mee...
A cursory reading of this bill suggests that it blocks “large utility platforms” from creating “digital assets” used as a “medium of exchange or use of value”.

1) Does this language even cover Facebook’s Libra? They’ve been careful to legally insulate themselves somewhat from Calibra / constrain their governance over Libra for this very reason.

2) Wouldn’t this bill simply open a space for independent projects like Theil and Altman’s Reserve currency to do the same thing (establish a self-stabilizing cryptocurrency in developing national markets) with complete impunity? In what sense does this bill meaningfully restrict “big tech” if Facebook stakeholder Theil wins big either way?

3) Assuming 1 and 2 are real problems, what would an appropriate response to projects like Libra be? Short of banning domestic cryptocurrency trade more broadly, I’m not sure what a sufficiently restrictive law would look like.
That appears to be a limited meta-analysis that itself postulated the reason temperate yield didn't improve because temperate soils were more fertilized on average than the tropical soil studies.

We're talking in the context of soil depletion in this thread, so I don't think their limited conclusion applies.
Interestingly, India is the first country to successfully send a Mars probe on the first attempt.
"A source familiar with the matter told The Block that the discussion draft is being floated by the House Financial Services Committee staff. However, it doesn't have an official lead yet."

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/tiny/congressional-leaders-ha...
I joined the game back in 2008 and within two weeks had already joined a well established UK based corp and was having a whale of a time.

Trust me it doesn't take six months to start to have fun in Eve.
From reading a few excerpts only, I am reminded of a lot of popular science writing, which too often adopts a condescending casual tone full of flimsy, inaccurate metaphors and chatty asides, and which too often omits simple statements of the details of the subject at hand (often less complex than the verbiage used for the adulterated version).

The writing becomes so far removed from the subject, that while those already familiar with it will be able to guess what the author was getting at, those who are not will remain in the dark, leading to a zero increase in the reader's knowledge in each case. Despite being in the former category with respect to basic calculus, I can't help but feel a sense of umbrage on behalf of the latter.
How to Set Up the Code-Server Cloud IDE Platform on Kubernetes
Well, India first needs to improve its poverty and the living standard of people instead of wasting money.
Why Stephen King Dislikes Stanley Kubrick’s Adaptation of “The Shining”
"'deindustrialising'"

Heavy industry moving abroad, mainly to china.

There's another variable in the mix. North sea gas running out. The UK has gone from basically being self sufficient in gas to importing most of it. I think you need to tease that out as well before you can definitively say its renewables pushing up the price.

I would also point out that Hinckley point C guaranteed prices are more expensive than the latest wind prices.

And I would finally point out that my 100% renewable electricity tariff was cheaper than the none renewable alternatives, and one of the biggest electricity companies has announced its going 100% renewable electricity, with no price increase to customers. Both of which seem to argue against renewable electricity being that much more expensive.
Yes, three separate jobs to date over a span of 16 years. However, none of those three jobs directly utilised my open source contributions over the last 20 years. They made use of the skills I had, and which those open source contributions demonstrated publicly.

I didn't start working on open source projects because I wanted to get a job, and have some fodder for padding my CV. I worked on them because I was interested, and got deeply involved in several over many years. I think getting involved solely for getting a job, is doing it for the wrong reasons. You need some intrinsic interest as well.
You can get the same advice from a crossfit website. Doctors aren’t the ones fortifying food and nurses seem perfectly capable of administering a vaccine.
Disclaimer: I work on a decentralized cryptocurrency

For the HN'ers who want to jump in and evangelize cryptocurrencies:

Libra is not a cryptocurrency. It is a Facebook-controlled private currency intended to circumvent the international banking system. Facebook, here, is in every way a financial institution.

Please don't let them fool you. The "decentralized" "byzantine-fault tolerant" "cryptocurrency" aspect is just tacked on as a marketing ploy.
I guess it's because composting doesn't guarantee the destruction of pathogens.
I don't think this is relevant to my question, or am I missing something?
To be fair, ubiome is a fraud, and (anecdote) 23andme made a mistake in reading my genome and their data showed that I had an incredibly deadly cancer predisposition (Li-Fraumeni), which a reputable medical lab showed to be false.
If you're thinking about web development in Kotlin, check out https://kweb.io/.

It takes full advantage of powerful Kotlin features like coroutines to make the barrier between browser and server almost invisible.
Why? What do you mean? Just curious!
5G Wireless Networks: Market Penetration and Risk Factors [pdf]
That's like saying that there's too much wood to cut to waste time sharpening axes.
Fortunately Boeing is not going to allow FAA to unground it until EASA approves it too. Can you imagine if it were still banned from European skies but flying in the US? That would kill it for good.
I think the article (and presumably the book) bring up a lot of great points about systemic issues with medicine, but I also think there is another much more macro level argument.

The Ancient Greeks were, in terms of medicine, almost completely ignorant. They had no idea about germs; instead focusing their medical theory around the 4 humors - blood, phlegm, yellow/black bile and miasma theory. What's good drinking water? Water that tastes clean. Vaccines? That'd come about 3,000 years later. And they engaged in hygiene habits we might find a wee bit dodgy. For instance at the public toilets there obviously were no toilet paper dispensers. Instead they'd use sponges - butt brushes. After one fellow finished his business you'd give it a swish around in some water or, for the fancier toilets - vinegar, and take your turn.

But the thing is is that they (and I am referring to the upper class here) had life expectancies that were not what you'd think. This [1] great article from the BBC has quite a lot of interesting data. For instance of some 298 recorded individuals of ancient Greece/Rome, the median life expectancy was 72 years. Some random famous names: Pythagorus - 75, Hippocrates - 90, Plato - 80, etc.

There is of course some selection bias in that sample, but you can also see evidence of longevity in other ways. For instance in Ancient Rome one could not hold the office of Consul until reaching the age of 43, first office was not available until age 30. The article also goes on to analyze numerous other sources than tend to paint a recurring picture: there was high infant and youth mortality, but people who made it to adulthood tended to have a life expectancy not all that different than we do today. It seems to suggest that a large part of our increased life expectancy is not from the trillions of dollars we've spent on trying to find a [profit making] pill for everything, but instead from very simple things like access to clean water and food.

---

Finally there is a little 'paradox' that should always be brought up in medicine and in particular efforts to try to squeeze out every slimmer gains. Imagine you have a test that is 99.9% accurate for some illness. And 1 in a million people have this illness. If somebody tests positive, what are the chances that this is a false positive? 99.9%! In a million people our 99.9% accurate test will give 1,000 hits - yet only 1 person will actually have the illness. You'd probably end up seeing a negative return on life expectancy here just because of how many people you'd be scaring witless after informing them they need to come back in for follow up testing. Seriously, just take a few days off their lives and you've already gotten rid of the gains in expectancy for the 1 in 1000 guy.

[1] - http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181002-how-long-did-ancien...
They are only "too big to fail" because the safety standards for airline travel are so high especially considering their market size. Compare it to driving: the global airline market in 2019 is expected to be 856 billion USD [0] while the US new car sale market alone was 956 billion USD in 2019 [1] which does not include other markets, the energy to power cars, nor the labor costs for driving so the car industry is way bigger. This table [2] says airlines are 62 times safer per km traveled.

I don't see how you could have a competitive market like cars when the safety standards are an order of magnitude higher than driving and yet probably an order of magnitude smaller in size.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/278372/revenue-of-commer...

[1]: https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/market-research-re...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...
The sooner the better. We need a democratic counterpoint to China's totalitarianism.
Alternative theory of gravity makes a nearly testable prediction
Didn't a big Silicon Valley startup already get their hands on a bunch of money and data and try to disrupt the medical industry? Can't quite remember... Themanos? Therablos? Wonder whatever happened to them...
Well why don't you donate the INR 400 internet pack you use to surf internet while a lot of people are starving of hunger?
It's like blaming the undertaker for murder. Just because he was recently seen in the vicinity of the corpse, doesn't mean it was his fault. He was just there to provide a valuable service.
use dirty tricks to block information access just to protect their shaky profits.

Look up to the top of this sub-thread, I started it. In that comment I specifically addressed that in the systems I'm responsible for:

- The traffic that (apparently) comes from competitors scraping our prices exceeds the traffic coming from legit customers. We're paying more to supply data to our competitors than to our customers!

- There are sometimes actual reasons beyond wanting "shaky profits" for wanting to limit what site users can do, including development resources to built features and APIs, as well as the actual cost of the computations.

- And I have no idea where your assertion about "dirty tricks" comes from. I'm having trouble finding anything "dirty" in trying to detect people abusing the system, and temporarily blocking their access.

And like I said above, I'm still glad I don't live in your neighborhood. Because not only don't you have any interest in being a positive member of society in commerce (you ignored all my comments on that topic), but I now see that on a personal level (e.g., "You assumed that...") you're also condescending.
Ok, but isn't the answer to "old landfill sites are not built to modern standards" that new landfill sites should be built to modern standards?
I actually suspect a fairly large amount of those prescriptions were for off label use.

But... Seems like the sort of side effects these medicines have should give us a pause when using them on vulnerable populations. Especially when the benefits are not especially clear.