skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>Most people don’t find actually smart AI fun to play against

This is a common myth that has basically never been tested. I know devs (particularly of stealth games) claim as much from their playtests, but I hope I don't need to point out the troubles with the approach of playtest-driven game design.

At the end of the day nobody has ever actually given an actual shot and released, say, a stealth game with guards that are similarly good at their jobs as real guards would be and have a vision range of more than 5 meters.

It's one of those super common game design wisdoms like 'let your your player jump a few frames after they've left the platform, otherwise it'll feel bad' and it's applied in most jump and runs because it's the right thing to do and then you get one of the most critically praised jump and runs of all time like super meat boy which uses exactly zero of these common wisdoms and instead just works with proper and tight game design.
I think parent is arguing three things:

1) The bulk of their apparent loss is a one-time expense

2) They are improving the unit economics of ride sharing and that, if the trend continues, they will be positive in the future.

3) The divisions that are losing money are new ventures like Uber eats and represent a short-term investment that should payoff

If they can reach positive unit economics after subsidies, that would be great for the company. It is still unknown, especially since Lyft and other companies are competing in the space.
This illustrates the idea well: https://i.imgur.com/II5W6Pl.png
Oh, there are still people who are indignant, or at least puzzled, that a poor person could possibly own such luxuries as a mobile phone or a flat screen TV.
As other commentators pointed out: Savings and investments are two sides of the same coin here. The money which is used for saving will be invested somewhere - even if the person who owns it just keeps it in an account on the bank.

The problem I see is that the money almost exclusively goes to startups. In the last 10 years the startup scene in the US has been doing very well - not in terms of profits but in terms of funding. This giant "pool of money" created by the FED however mostly benefits just a small part of the workforce: Notably the engineers, scientists, managers, lawyers, investment bankers, etc. in the startup hotspots: In cities like SF, NYC, Seattle, Houston, etc. This is a problem for society because while wages for some parts of the workforce keep growing other workers are left with stagnating wages.
In the US, long term capital gains and qualified dividends (which is most of them) are already taxed at the same rate.
> (2) It's arguably the most valuable battleground in logistics - developing a "last mile" delivery network at scale.

How is Uber Eats any different from the many other operations strapping boxes to the backs of bicyclists? I don't see anything innovative about Uber's last mile logistics compared to Amazon (who aren't even that great) for instance.

It sounds more like an excuse Uber's leadership would make as they desperately search for profitable business.
Yes, this is helpful for comparing two items on the shelf next to each other, and it is present in some stores. But there are only a few items that I actually remember the price/oz between visits. Mostly I remember only the price per package (if anything). For example, Triscuits and Wheat Thins are a good buy at $2/pack, and OK at $2.50/pack. But when they shrink the pack, I'm SOL because I have no idea what the price/oz equivalent is.

Maybe this is "my fault", but I'd guess that most consumers don't pay that much attention to the exact number of ounces (which are sometimes fractional) in the box.
WhatsApp vs Telegram E2E encryption seems to be a hot topic here, so I’m not sure in which subthread to ask.

The question is how WhatsApp is E2E by default, if I can open a browser, read the QR-code and see all my E2E chats in there instantly? WA either has them unencrypted or can see my phone’s secret key in transit. Isn’t the whole point of END to END messaging being undecipherable on devices other than these two?

Or how does that work? Is my browser establishing e2e to my phone and downloading all chats? This seems unlikely. Does it synchronize the secret key? Then I see it as a security hole — I don’t want my secret chats to leak to other devices that may be not as protected as a phone.
Here's at least part of where things fall apart... "What you have is a blind and self-righteous upper class that becomes structurally unable to take coordinated responsibility."

The rich have never "taken responsibility." The rich are rich mostly due to exploitative practices. Yes, the rich cosplay as poor to shirk that responsibility.

The author wants a return to some time when Yale made good elites that lead properly... but the elites have never lead in a "good way." It's all just business as usual.

I haven't fully dissected this all. The author has written for the weekly standard. In particular, articles praising Jordan Peterson. That should clue you into their views.
Most investors have a target asset allocation (so much % in stocks, bonds, cash/equivalents) and will seek to restore that allocation when they temporarily have too much cash and too little stock [as a result of selling some of theirs to the company].
I think it’s still a form of status-signalling. It’s like how the ‘old money’ rich turn up their noses at the ‘new rich’ because they’re too gaudy and obvious in how they display wealth. Even if you can make more money than any of the old rich, you can never obtain the level of social capital and political power that being in the club gets you just by making tons of money—you need to be granted access by existing members who will carefully scrutinize your behavior and ideology before deciding you’re one of them.

But that doesn’t mean that the old money folks aren’t showing off their wealth and power—they just do so in coded ways. What the article describes is basically the same thing.
Here in Canberra, Australia there is a lot of consulting/contract work, and 5 years seems to be the magic number.

For contracts here they mostly only hire "senior", and once i crossed 5 years experience the same recruitment firms that all but ignored me 6 months earlier wouldn't stop calling.
Airborne radioactive ruthenium from an undeclared major nuclear release in 2017
Perhaps. But that's not a sustainable business model. Numerous like-companies out of ideas? Then plenty of C level, leadership, and management is overpaid. The fact that they benefit for these stock buybacks only makes matters worse.
> Those devices phone home to Cisco regularly for validation, and if they aren’t able to do so will go back to “Evaluation Mode” after one year.

I'd like to see their salesperson try and explain the advantages of this to my CIO.
Would this be the same reaction if it was a black woman who was a caretaker? Or an uneducated Indian?
Are there that many companies bleeding the pig? Possible. But how likely?
I guess you'd have to see historical margins to make any sort of reasonable projections, but I think GP is saying that they've so increased their unit margin on the ride-hailing to near zero that it's dishonest to say they're running it a massive loss and have no route to profitability.
Pretty sure you are being sarcastic or you are not all that experienced.

Talk at length with most economic professionals on /r/economics and you will find the repeatedly stated and unstated views that “the CPI is the most studied economic measurement in the world” and “you are welcome to perform your own study covering the inadequacies of the CPI.” I paraphrased slightly but from memory those quotes are highly accurate, as well as the general dismissiveness and institutionalism/bias pertaining to official economic data. Also for a professional economist to question the accuracy of official economic data is career suicide. Why you rarely see that topic discussed by a professional economist or in a published study.
22,000 workers not big?
They become "journalists"
Tip. A peptide known as BPC-157 is healing of tendons.
> Don't learn the hippest UI IDE, learn vim or emacs.

In some circles, these are equally as 'hip.' Idea: learn the tools you need to get the job done. Study theory to supplement your skills.
So basically Cisco is useless on airgapped networks now?
The success of Lyft just shows how little moat they have. The core of their business is so simple and so easy to copycat.
> $65 and $80 a year

In a country with median hourly wage $18.58
> We need this law in the US

We'd end up in a miasma of litigation around whether one product is a reduced quantity of another, or if they're separate product lines.

Products already list quantities. That's enough for someone paying attention to value.
If the ramjet didn't go critical it wouldn't be of much use. The key number when you are talking about an operating reactor is called the multiplication factor--when an atom fissions on average how many other atoms will be split by the neutrons released from that fission.

When this number is less than one things just peacefully sit there. If an atom fissions the chain soon dies out. If this number is more than one things get hotter and hotter until it comes apart. If this were the whole story there would be no nuclear power, but there's one very useful detail--a small number of those neutrons are not emitted at once. This gives you a margin to control things.

When the immediate neutrons are enough to cause more than one fission you have the state known as prompt critical, you have lost control, the reactor will run wild and destroy itself. (An atom bomb is the same idea, except rather than just edging past 1 a bombmaker pushes the ratio as high as possible so it takes a city with it in destroying itself.) I am aware of two cases where reactors had issues with control rods and crossed the prompt critical line, both were immediately destroyed. SL-1 and Chernobyl.

The zone between critical and prompt critical gives you a way to control things. You have time to turn the heat up or down as needed. A nuclear ramjet is going to be designed to operate at a very high power density, it's going to be a lot closer to the line than a reactor is normally run. Stick one toe over the line and you get what SpaceX calls a RUD.

Alternately, it might have run too hot, something softened or melted and the core shape changed to cross the prompt critical line, same outcome.
You're thinking of their Status 6 torpedoes. 100kt, intercontinental range.
Its very HN to get downvoted for sharing a perspective and how one arrived at it.

Acosta said the reason he didn’t give him a harsher sentence back in 2007 was because he “belonged to intelligence”.

>>
He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. <<

https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy-intelligenc...
The term "shell shock" was coined during World War I, under the belief that these soldiers' symptoms were caused by repeated exposure to exploding artillery shells. Once it became clear that the actual cause was more nuanced, the term was abandoned.

Ironically, more recent research into veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that there may be some real neurological effects of close-range exposure to explosions, such as IEDs...
> ... whereas dividends are subject to ordinary income tax.

Not in Canada:

> Unlike many other countries, dividends from Canadian based companies are eligible for a somewhat convoluted set of calculations that can fondly be described as the dividend gross up and tax credit system. The basic rationale behind this system is that dividends are paid by corporations after the taxman has already taken his cut. Therefore, if dividend payments were fully taxed in the hands of the investor as well, it would equate to a double taxation.

* https://www.fool.ca/13-steps-to-financial-freedom/step-8-the...

* https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividendtaxcredit.asp

It's slightly convoluted, but if you have investments in taxable accounts, then there's a bit of advantage in them than simply interest. Though capital gains in Canada is only taxed at half of one's marginal rate as well.
Did they ever publish their path algorithms? I'm building a simulation that will soon need path finding, and something that is good and doesn't appear to be doing obviously stupid things (but not necessarily the best) would be a perfect fit
China showed their willingness to deploy armored vehicles in civilian areas 30 years ago. If citizens had guns there'd be a bloodbath right now.
Sad to say, you have assholes for parents. Sure, I can see them reasonably thinking that making you support yourself in college was a fine idea. But providing no support that would benefit their own infant grandchild? No.
Good explanation. So it makes me wonder if we could improve on the capacitor if we could find its magnetic counterpart. Does that even make sense?
I'm pretty sure the crypto exchanges own this data and will be hostile when they see it being repackaged and resold like this.
> Beyond that, Uber's electronic-dispatch technology has the ability to optimize garbage pick-up and drop-off; police, fire and medical resource routing; small-vehicle fleet management for sundry specialized logistics companies; and all manner of other logistical processes presently centrally dispatched like taxis were a decade ago.

But why is it going to be Uber providing those services? What's their moat? Google has an absurd amount of live data from shivers using Google Maps or Waze as they drive around a city, if they launch a "medical resource routing" service tomorrow it'll blow Uber out of the water.
In theory there may be economies of scale in food delivery if a single driver can deliver multiple orders from the same restaurant. Uber Eats already offers free/cheap delivery when there's already an order out to a given restaurant.
Thanks for the detailed response. Must be frustrating I imagine. I hope you feel better with time.

I can understand many of your observations, and I would imagine that it is a spectrum. But this only makes the observation of PTSD in other species more muddy. I would imagine there could be some sort of behavioral or physiological observations, and that is what I am hoping we will have some day.
Scenario: It's raining. Twice as many people are requesting rides as normal. You have, as you described, only full-time employees. Go!
Also the stock based comp is non cash so it impacts net income but not cash from operations. CFO - Capex is a better measure of a companies cash flow.
> I suggest reading the book October Surprise by Gary Sick. Intelligence agencies don’t use competent people.

They use incompetent people who can be manipulated into believing they have common interests and competent people who believe in their own that they have common interests, but, yes, they often use incompetent people. The relevance of this observation is unclear, as it still presents no existing phenomenon that requires a shady superior to Epstein to explain.

> Your understanding of the situation is incorrect.

You have as yet provided no way in which my understanding is incorrect.
Design for the Real World [pdf]
No reason for iodine tablets if a RTG got splattered across the landscape. If iodine tablets do any good there was fission involved. The threatening isotope is Iodine-131, half life of 8 days. It's only found associated with fission or with atom smashers.

It poses basically no direct harm, the threat is your body taking it up and putting it in the thyroid where it decays and irradiates the thyroid. Hence when it's a threat you take potassium iodide tablets--basically flooding your body with as much iodine as is safe. The fallout iodine gets diluted by all the iodine in the tablets, you absorb a much lower amount of the dangerous stuff.
People who are living exclusively on 401k income are, by far, a minority of people with 401k’s, yes.
When this was built, was it assumed that this would be a temporary structure? Was there any long-term thinking at all, or just an immediate need?

Also, this thing looks like a fabulous lightning distribution network during thunderstorms.
This is an interesting thesis: social media and other c2c content exchanges have partially democratized social capital.
Half of people get rides, the other half don’t, as happens with taxis today. It’s unreasonable to assume the physical world has the elasticity of technology resources.
Ask HN: Who was the first CEO in history?
In the USA, dividends on stock one has held for more than a year is taxed as long term capital gains.

The tax advantage of buybacks is they allow the shareholder to choose when the taxes are incurred, not how they’re taxed.
In the short term, it's also going to encourage people to just crack the protection (if it hasn't already been done).
Ubiquiti needs to invest in their router hardware team; golden opportunity in the market right now. Current gen of their routers are software based while even Cisco's SG3XX of routers have TCAM memory and can route at line speed. I really like their approach: cloud based but its your cloud and only if you want it.
HN is probably the only place I regularly visit on the internet where a large portion of the regular user base will passionately defend these kind of practices. It makes sense, a lot of people here have vested interest in these kind of corporations.
Something I have thought privately for years is that lowering the "cost of money" is the best way to reduce inequality. It is beginning to look like we may find out as that cost keeps going lower.
You can count yourself as one of the lucky ones as I had many classmates in college who lost the ability to type before they graduated because of RSI.

While I’m no medical professional, I’ve thus far avoided serious RSI by
1. Not typing very much. I spend most of my time thinking and a minority of time typing.
2. Periodically change work area. I have the luxury of having the option of typing in an office, a laboratory or outside under a tree and frequently move around. Even if you don’t have this much flexibility, try adjusting your chair up and down, move your monitor around, etc.

EDIT: I make no guarantees these things have any correlation with my avoidance of serious RSI symptoms.
When I first heard of this trend of buybacks I got annoyed. But then I realized, isn’t this just a “Miller and Modigliani” switch from equity to debt financing?

The shareholders get cash and can reinvest it in other ventures, including buying the debt of said company.

(I like this! Focus on what you do, and if there’s isn’t anything left for you to grow into, let me figure something for myself. This is personal for me - my dad lost a lot of his retirement on GE stock because Jack Welsh decided to turn GE into a bank instead of an eng. company.)

Meanwhile the company doing buybacks hasn’t really changed (it’s book value is the same - see M&M [0]) except now it’s taxed far less.

The biggest problem with this is that the leeches at the top get bonuses for meaninglessly changing the stock price. Since their comp packages can go into the hundreds of millions (again, Welsh), this sucks!

We could argue that debt financing is unstable, and I wouldn’t disagree. But unless we’re talking stability, what’s the problem with buybacks?

[0] as an example, to compare Ford (4b shares @ $10) and Tesla (173m shares @250), you can’t just multiply their stock price by the outstanding shares (both about $40billion) . You must also add their debt load (ford co $150 billion, TSLA $14 billion). Ford Co is (for now) a much more valuable company than TSLA. After all it delivers millions of cars every year!

Debt was used to finance Ford factories, just as stocks would have.
As long as it was prorated to previous quarters in the previous evaluations I guess that is fine.
> What's their moat?

They’re actually doing it. At scale, practically everywhere.

> if [Google] launch a "medical resource routing" service tomorrow it'll blow Uber out of the water

I’m doubtful. One, it’s Google. Logistics requires lots of customer interaction. Uber isn’t great at this, but it’s better than Google.

Also, being able to theoretically do something is different from actually doing it. The problem isn’t routing. It’s knowing which tasks to bundle in what order. It’s knowing where tasks which haven’t been ordered yet are likely to emerge. It’s knowing how long a task might take. It’s knowing which tasks require what, and who is best placed to accept it. It’s mediating disputes between the various parties involved, and properly incentivising them.
I wonder what leads folks to bank robbery. Generally I think it is fairly well known you generally can't do it for long and it isn't highly profitable.

I always assumed it was usually a sort of crime of desperation.
That's a pretty terrible solution. Leaving good, willing-to-pay customers out in the rain? Not really customer-service oriented, are we?
MoviePass reportedly changed passwords to prevent users from seeing films
Who was the first CEO in recorded history? Also, when did the title of "CEO" start to become generally recognized? Did early CEO's have the same legal rights / responsibilities that the CEO's of today do, or were they different in their early history?
Why more than 200 reindeer died in Norway's Svalbard
This

Imagine, says Kwagala, if a 20-something Ugandan woman had gone to the U.S. and set up an equivalent arrangement to treat impoverished American children.

"She would have been prosecuted. She would have been behind bars,"
That’s a competitive advantage over taxis, then. It’s one of several reasons I choose uber over yellow cabs when in NYC (9 times out of 10, anyway).
Customer obsession is worker abuse veiled as clever business practices.

Workers > Customers > Shareholders (this is Costco’s stated priority by the way; they do very well and treat their employees well)
> One, it’s Google. Logistics requires lots of customer interaction. Uber isn’t great at this, but it’s better than Google.

That's usually said when talking about Google's free services. In my experience when you're paying them money they're very responsive.

And I'm still not sure what makes Uber's tech all that notable. They simply have more drivers than their competitors do, it stands to reason the customer experience is better.
So what? Is it your mission to threadjack every story and turn it into a conversation about Firefox market share?

When you observe someone using Firefox do you interject, "You know that Firefox is dying, right?"

When you participate in meetings, do you open with "I'd like to state for the record that Firefox is doomed, doomed I say"?

At the coffee shop in the morning, do you order "Grande Mocha, hold the Firefox because all hope is lost"?
Then everything gets shipped off to some third world country to be burned or land filled via a company that has Certified Recycling(tm)
This is a serious misconception.