skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
MSDN Magazine Is Going Away
>Tcl is one of the few homoiconic languages.

I've been diving back into Scheme and one thing I found out was that in Scheme, procedures don't normally have an "external representation." I.e., once a procedure has been defined, I don't think there's a way to get that definition back out.

Tcl is really interesting in this aspect since procedure definitions (names, argument lists and bodies) can be viewed using the "info" command.

With that in mind, I'd say it's actually more homoiconic than Scheme.
The article is satire, but I have some observations of and questions about FP. It seems like every FP programming environment develops objects of some kind. React/JSX has classes. Clojure has a few ways to use Java classes. Monads seem to be wrappers at some level. Then, you have environments which are explicitly "hybrids" between OO and FP, like Scala and MOP in Common Lisp.

The whole world seems to be converging on the usefulness of immutability, and this process started decades back. Also going decades back, at least as far as the 90's, Smalltalk folks recognized that a lot of the goodness in the class library and environment came from the majority of class library functions being pure, or the encapsulation allowing programmers think about them as if they were pure.

Would it be going too far to observe that programming is generally converging on pragmatic, mixed environments where the value of immutability and referential transparency is emphasized, but where encapsulation of state is also used? This is not absolutely true 100% across the board, but it seems to be one of the larger scale trends.
It wasn't linked from the article and it took me a moment to find it, so I've reposted the text of the tweets in question below.

> @sundarpichai of Google was in the Oval Office working very hard to explain how much he liked me, what a great job the Administration is doing, that Google was not involved with China’s military, that they didn’t help Crooked Hillary over me in the 2016 Election, and that they...

> ....are NOT planning to illegally subvert the 2020 Election despite all that has been said to the contrary. It all sounded good until I watched Kevin Cernekee, a Google engineer, say terrible things about what they did in 2016 and that they want to “Make sure that Trump losses...

> ....in 2020.” Lou Dobbs stated that this is a fraud on the American public. @peterschweizer stated with certainty that they suppressed negative stories on Hillary Clinton, and boosted negative stories on Donald Ttump. All very illegal. We are watching Google very closely!

Here's a link to the end of the chain: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11587060587240407...
A bit of a tangent, but it feels to me like using wads of funding to try to create hypergrowth is a good fit for "winner-take-all" markets, like those with network effects.

Social media fits.
Syncing documents, maybe not-so-much.

So Dropbox invests in areas where there are possible network effects, like collaborating on documents. Because that's what fits its funding model.

But simple file syncing... This is not a winner-take-all market.
Isn't the whole point of insurance the basic bet that I will need an expensive service so I will make small payments towards that possibility, against the insurer's bet that I will not need that service and will instead be able to keep those payments as a profit? If so, that arrangement has been abused by using it for health care, instead of insuring against a low probability major health incident...

It seems this would be the same as car insurance also paying for tolls, road maintenance, car maintenance, etc. instead of just covering against person/property injury from vehicle operation.

If health insurance instead is used for typical day-to-day payments for health care coverage, then the costs of that insurance will logically exceed the cost of that care because the insurance company exists to make a profit through offering that service.

Similar to paying the government to do something that would be more efficiently done privately - Maybe the same outcome (if one is fortunate) for far greater cost.

Anecdotally, I used to have a health insurance plan that had a very high deductible and fairly low monthly payments for my wife and myself. It's sole purpose was to hedge the bet that one of us might need ambulance and major medical treatment at an expensive facility (hospital) that might break us financially without that hedge in place.

The Affordable HealthCare Act in the USA ended that arrangement, we now have triple the payment size for a third of the coverage we used to have. To me, that is a clear case of my government getting involved and the results being a net loss.

Edit: Sorry, it did not end that arrangement, it made it far, far more expensive.
I know all jobs are jobs, and all work is work, and I have no plans to bail on my software job for another field. But like you mention, the tangible, physical, lasting product of your efforts is an attractive concept.

That's probably the reason I like to make stuff in my spare time, and why I prefer to show that stuff off rather than talk about my work most of the time. I don't have to explain why my work is interesting or important. Even if the stuff I make isn't 'important', people can appreciate a finished physical thing and the work that went into it, and I can dive into details about how I made it and the choices I made.
History of the broken vertical bar, being the ¦ form of |
> $8 for an ice latte

You have not been to their "reserve" stores where they sell noname American whiskey for $20 a cup

This is a funny things that happened with many American brands in China.

McDonalds has desk service, and actually quite satiating meals

Wallmart turned into a somewhat upscale store

KFC - Same story as Mac

Pizza hut... Ever seen a $50 pizza hut pizza meal?

Wendy's? Probably along same lines

Buick!!!!!! Pffffffff!!!!! - China is the one of a kind country where people will buys a car falling apart as you drive just because it is American.

Other GM brands, Ford, Lincoln - more or less the same on a lesser scale. Ford was a latecomer to selling "Americanness," but I think they just got it right now. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ford-motor-china-lincoln/...

GE appliances (actually Haier now) - same story

I even recall stories of some "made in USA" clothing and apparel going big

I personally saw a very plain looking black plastic sunglasses going for $100+ with "Made in USA" and your flag boldly silkscreened on it.
I can't provide proof without potentially going to jail and/or pissing off a billion dollar company. The chances may be small, but the risks are really high.

But perhaps some fellow HNers have anecdotes of an insurance company how's denied every claim they've made.
In my area, Slice bought domains containing local pizzerias' names. Slice then set up the domains with sites branded with the local businesses' branding and replaced the phone numbers and online ordering with Slice's.

Turns out Slice was able to beat those businesses at the SEO game and now those fake sites are the first results when looking for local pizzerias' contact info.
Do the Netherlands also have doctors who expect to make $300k-$1M/yr and drugs that cost 10x what they do in any other country?
Disclaimer: I worked on this feature.

Yelp has a texting option; the app is required to view your 'live' place in line. The app (or website, or mobile site) also allows you to get in line without having to physically arrive at the restaurant and talk to the host.
I'm saying that even what he said then was a bit of a stretch; even in his day you couldn't just decide to be a lawyer one day with any effectiveness.

Today it's just silly. You can't decide to review medical papers today, write them tomorrow, farm the next day, then be a lawyer, then go commercial crab fishing, then be a surveyer, then design an interstate highway bridge, then perhaps a concert pianist performance, and then perhaps start it all over again in a cycle. Or, to the extent you can, you can't generate any value that way.

Of course you can still "recreate" with hunting, fishing, and "criticizing after dinner" (note how, coincidentally, all his cited examples tend to gracefully fail; I can "go hunting" and come back with nothing and I have accomplished "going hunting"). Observing that recreation in the form of unevaluated, low-barrier-of-entry tasks that nobody cares if you produce no value with are available is a pointless statement, so I assume that's not the point of the quote. But there's a whackload of magic in that "society will regulate production" if everybody operates like this. "Society regulating production" is why we end up specialized. You end up specialized because it takes years of training and experience in any field to be worth a darn, which means that's by necessity the cost of switching too. You can certainly get to a hobbyist level in a couple of fields beyond your profession, too, but even then you're unlikely to just switch that to your profession one day in the general case.
Health insurance isn't actually insurance though (at least not only insurance), it's more like prepaid medical care.
Ask HN: Suggestions from the Experienced
Hello fellow hackers of the cyberspace!

I don't have a problem, rather seeking for some stories from the experienced programmers.

I started hacking five years ago. I look up to real programmers such as Linus Torvalds and Eric S. Raymond.

Currently my job is at a small print company. I'm a graphic designer. I do desings, I print, etc...

I wrote a script for a job that we are doing by hand and it takes between 5 and 15 minutes. Now, in a click of a mouse, the piece is print ready. It took 25 hours to write this.

I value this script for 800$.

I'm constantly improving it. I can also offer technical support.

As I see things now, I'll surely write more scripts in the future. I see things that can be automated. As a matter of fact, I wrote a second one already.

Any guidelines on the internet? What are your opinions? Should I sell them the script? What shall I do?

Does anyone have a similar story?

I'm looking forward to your answers.

Thanks,
-use-the-force-luke
Look up "htop output" on Google image search.
If anything, a myth that persistent must have something behind it. (I've zero interest in FAANGs so I would not know if they do or do not really ask it).

There's no question that a competent, well-rounded programmer should know about these algorithms' existence and when to use them. But whether testing if said programmer can implement them from scratch during an interview... that's a million dollar question whether these questions provide optimal outcomes. Anecdotally, yeah, sure, I did these things. In S/370 assembler at that. But did I use 90% of them since then(and that was when Apple was the only FAANG in existence)? No. So I think the feeling is that this kind of interview tests not so much how good, or experienced, or what not, you are at programming but rather how desperate you are to work at that kind of company to spend a good amount of time memorizing algos and data structures you've learned and forgotten years ago.
Yes, I know, but what does that give me? When I'm setting up the infrastructure for my company, what can I do with Docker that I can't do more easily with a standard VM and Terraform? In terms of security, isolation, orchestration of services, managing concurrency, I get everything I need with ordinary VMs and Terraform. I don't see what Docker gives me.
Only if you are your own customer. There is a lot of need for software where the user is not a developer, and has better things to do with their time than write software.
> I don't get why it's so easy for "bad" people on the site to manipulate people into subscribing to these hateful ideologies but it's impossible for "good" people to pull them back out.

Society: Take responsibility for yourself, either accept your lot in life or affect change through self-improvement and the democratic process.

Degenerates: It's not your fault, it's XXX.
I think i was pretty clear right from the beginning. "EU and each european country"

As for the rest of it how sensible closed borders policies are i will rephrase old Smullyan, it's only sensible to your satisfaction and to the satisfaction of those who share the same right-wing values, but without hearing the argument of why this is a sensible policy i can assure you that it carries not the slightest conviction to the people of the left.

Open borders and free, safe passage.
Here is a list of agriculture, chemicals and food safety agencies that have published reports or statements that they don't consider glyphosate a cancer risk:

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), New Zealand EPA, Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), Korean Rural Development Administration (RDA), Food Safety Commission of Japan (FSC), World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in a joint statement, Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (BLV/OSAV), French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES).

https://thoughtscapism.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/glyphosat...

Here is a list of agencies that have published reports that they do consider glyphosate a cancer risk:

IARC
So you cherry-pick a few examples (one of which wasn't on public transit at all), and you think that's better than a place where 30,000 people per year are killed in auto crashes? Your likelihood of dying on a train in Japan are almost nil, whereas your likelihood of dying in your car on American roads are actually pretty significant, and it's one of the biggest causes of death of non-elderly people.
In my state at least, the ACA bankrupted the smaller participants and allowed for the Blue Cross to eat up that market, all while increasing their price 50%-100% year-on-year. Forcing someone to purchase these products, combined with our campaign finance problems in the US, I wonder if this wasn't a submarine corporate welfare bill.

More charitably one might call it a half-measure when one needs a full.
Give a Dam About This Beaver Spotted Swimming in the Hudson River
What also works in The Netherlands is that insurance is not tied to employment.

I've heard that many American workers quit in the early days of the month, so that their ex-employer is still covering their health insurance that month, and their next employer (presuming they have another job to go to) picks it up in the next month. I can't imagine how many people are stuck in jobs they hate just because they are afraid to be without insurance. It can't be good for anyone.
That just tracks what application though right? It doesn't give any insights about what project for example.
I think the point is to stop these people taking dangerous journeys not to send them to the bottom of the sea. It both moral and more efficient.
This is what I worry about. As social mores change, we must resist efforts to carve out exceptions to fundamental rights, in order to prevent those exceptions from being wrongly used against people in a harmful way. I think the Founders understood this on some level, even if they couldn't know what the political and social landscape would look like today.
Cantor's Diagonal Argument
Seems like every day now there's a blatant "Huge Recession Incoming! Brace Yourselves!" type story floating to the top.
Disclaimer: I worked on this feature.

If you walk in to the restaurant, you don't need to install the app. The app will let you view your live place in line, but you can leave the line/get notified when your table is ready vis SMS.

If you want to get in line before you show up the restaurant, you can do that via the app, or the www site, or the mobile site.
Having a country with starving people is absolutely about culture. The culture of that country doesn't allow any social welfare programs, so people become like that.
But that's the origin of the concept. Clearly, the government advocating advanced directives is a slippery slope to straight up utility calculations (in the minds of these people).
Naw, one provided the service I’m looking for, and the other could and did, but now refuses to. Diametric opposites in utility.
When I said "just let failed drives sit", I didn't imagine loss of redundancy, I imagined that they would re-balance it to other drives.
Juul launches a Bluetooth e-cigarette that tracks how much you vape
A problem that this hypothesis has to contend with is that there are populations of humans (Khoi san and African pygmies) who split off from the rest of humanity > 70k years ago, yet who seem pretty modern.
BillionToOne (YC S17) is hiring marketers for precision diagnostics
It seems like it's basically like CPU socket spring pins, which I would assume have much higher thermal loading.
IIRC insurer's "fat profits" are now limited by ACA to some small percentage of premiums. They were previously not. Ironically this seems to be having the opposite of the intended effect and prices are only growing faster.
i think those conditions also hold true under the ACA plans right now (unless Trump dismantled those conditions.)

anyway, a major selling point for Medicare-for-all I'm hearing is that overall it will result in a big savings. if that system-wide savings does not materialize, if we still have to pay the same amount we're paying now through higher taxes that amount to the same thing, then I would think Medicare-for-all didn't actually deliver on the promises.

the other thing I wonder about is: look at prescription drug prices now: the FDA has been captured by Big Pharma. drug prices are way higher than they need to be. Medicare-for-all needs some real safeguards, something really strong, to prevent that sort of price inflation. and since single payer would eliminate competition, it has to be some other mechanism.
No-no - I mean using the webcam and a mirror. I.e there would be a little mirror that would fold out of the screen.
It could be argued that garbage collection, polymorphism, lambdas, and REPLs were semi-mainstreamed by Smalltalk. That's not to say that it was the first appearance of those features. However, it was a big incursion into mainstream awareness. In 2019, all of those things are squarely mainstream. In the 1990's, lots of programmers regarded them akin to "woo."
I certainly hope those bulk commercial SMS fees add up. SMS spam is bad enough as it is.
Facebook to Add Its Name to Instagram, WhatsApp – The Information
For that precise reason I don’t use Yelp (or similar) at all. I love serendipitous discovery and my favourite places wouldn’t win any such popularity contest (and I’m thankful they don’t).

I believe that this quantification of all aspects our world leeches much of the enjoyment and discovery from it, so I prefer not to participate.
Stack over Flow's How to Design a Good Question
Google maps also likes to hide results unless you are zooming in/out/researching the area constantly. Just show me everything in town, the full picture. I don't care if I have to wait seconds longer.
Reading through this, I don't take it as "Trump accusing Google of illegal acts" - at least not the way that it seems to be have been perceived by Reuters.

I read this as Trump saying that Pichai's statements seemed to contrast with what is being said by other parties, and that the acts described by those other parties are illegal.

That doesn't strike me as a minor distinction. It seems to me that he's using his bully pulpit to publicize Cernekee at Google's expense. Whether or not that is appropriate is fair game IMO, but it's not at all what the article claimed.
How is this an "innovative connector design"? This is exactly how sim card slots worked on many old Nokias, the mechanism is literally identical.
Comparison between cylindrical and prismatic lithium-ion cell costs
I like the idea I'll try it for a bit and see how sticky it is. One quick suggestions - if I start a timer and then I'm out of the room or don't notice the notification until 23 minutes later and then I enter what I was doing during that time, don't log the entry at the 10 minutes, log it at the actual time I submitted the note on the last period of time spent.

any chance you could implement the timer in a chrome extension as well? that way I don't have to remember to keep the tab open.
If you have to quote a three year old article to demonstrate that people do get (occasionally) assaulted on a Japanese train, then yes, it does seem much better to me.
You can turn those off.

https://www.howtogeek.com/407789/how-to-stop-google-maps-rev...
Is this something you can setup entirely in the Twilio console or are you using some custom code to handle it?
I think this is why I enjoy backpacking once in a while. Sure, it’s nowhere close to actually “living off the land” but it’s still a challenge to survive out in the woods in the middle of winter with just what you can carry on your back. It also makes me more aware and appreciative of all the comforts and conveniences I have when I get home.
Even nicer because it does not need a third party server is
https://github.com/maxmcd/webtty
Communication is done using webrtc
Also "the staff is so RUDE!". Any review which uses the word "rude" can be safely ignored, because it's written by the kind of person who considers it rude that his/her water glass went unfilled for nearly 30 seconds after being emptied.
Hey! So, I thought this was cool and wanted to try it out.

Compiled hnsd and tried to run it on local machine and an ec2 spot instance but it keeps failing to connect to it's (hardcoded?) peers.

I keep seeing this,

peer 354 (172.104.177.177:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 354 (172.104.177.177:13038): closing peer
peer 354 (172.104.177.177:13038): closed peer
peer 355 (139.162.183.168:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 355 (139.162.183.168:13038): closing peer
peer 355 (139.162.183.168:13038): closed peer
peer 353 (172.104.214.189:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 353 (172.104.214.189:13038): closing peer
peer 353 (172.104.214.189:13038): closed peer
peer 352 (173.255.209.126:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 352 (173.255.209.126:13038): closing peer
peer 352 (173.255.209.126:13038): closed peer
peer 357 (172.104.177.177:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 357 (172.104.177.177:13038): closing peer
peer 357 (172.104.177.177:13038): closed peer
peer 359 (139.162.183.168:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 359 (139.162.183.168:13038): closing peer
peer 359 (139.162.183.168:13038): closed peer
peer 358 (172.104.214.189:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 358 (172.104.214.189:13038): closing peer
peer 358 (172.104.214.189:13038): closed peer
peer 356 (173.255.209.126:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 356 (173.255.209.126:13038): closing peer
peer 356 (173.255.209.126:13038): closed peer
peer 363 (172.104.177.177:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 363 (172.104.177.177:13038): closing peer
peer 363 (172.104.177.177:13038): closed peer
peer 361 (139.162.183.168:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 361 (139.162.183.168:13038): closing peer
peer 361 (139.162.183.168:13038): closed peer
peer 362 (172.104.214.189:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 362 (172.104.214.189:13038): closing peer
peer 362 (172.104.214.189:13038): closed peer
peer 360 (173.255.209.126:13038): failed connecting: connection refused
peer 360 (173.255.209.126:13038): closing peer
peer 360 (173.255.209.126:13038): closed peer

Also, These IP address are either blocking ICMP ping messages or outright unreachable because ping fails to talk to them.