skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> 'That statement contradicts itself. Is this satire?'

My comment was the first one on this article. 473 comments later, it looks like over 90% of the other commenters agree with my observations, considering 90% of the other posts could have been written by me also. So the real question is, what do we know that you don't?

I started programming in 1991. Since the 90s I've watched as software has been steadily circling the drain. Many others have noticed it too, as shown by this discussion. The growing discontent is palpable. Where have you been during this time?

> 'Everything has a cost / benefit associated with it. Pretending otherwise show how little you know about engineering.'

Typical excuse from a lazy, talentless hack, excusing his shit code. What you are doing is not engineering.

> 'It not like most developers these days work on large software projects that are normally poorly costed, estimated, planned usually with stifling restrictions because certain "enterprise" technology is mandated by some architect who hasn't written a line of code in a couple of decades. Most people like a consistent regular income which allows them to support themselves and their family. I suspect these concerns are more important then incoherent ramblings of some guy on HN.'

Typical, common, ordinary, everyday selfishness. "Well I thought about taking a stand for what's right, but decided against it Because Reasons." Pathetic.

What are you doing that is actively making the world of computers, or even the world in general, a better place? Is that something you care about at all? Or do you prefer to just cash that check while making bullshit excuses?

I live in a cabin in the woods just because I'm not going to swim in the shark pit that you call home. Nor am I going to actively fuck up the world just to make a paycheck. It's called having principles.
> Pretty much every business is interested in lowering their healthcare costs.

My company does this by just charging people who smoke an additional couple dollars every paycheck for their healthcare.
Right, I find that hard to believe. I worked in the Oxnard location for a short time in 2007 and that has never been my experience. They'll dim the lights well after store closing, but it's never been dark enough that I felt like I couldn't see what I was doing.
I don't know, I have never witnessed the brutality of this failure first hand and I understand the importance of doing my homework and having a plan.
It is easy to be an armchair expert, but I saw that this is not a viable idea: almost nobody would pay for it, for 99% of the cases patients and doctors already know the medication that is good enough and good for them (ibuprofen for me, acetaminophen for my friend because Ibuprofen upsets her stomach etc). And remaining 1% will most likely require serious medical attention, not just rando site. Let alone the fact that this is borderline dispensing medical advice which is a highly regulated activity!

One way to look for a similar business is examine.com (disclosure: I do not use them but read their write ups and articles about them on indie hackers-like sites and podcasts). It is a site that gives information about supplements. The supplement landscape is much more wide than that of painkillers, they are hard to compare, and supplements are usually chosen by consumers themselves, and supplement information is unlikely to be treated as a medical advice.
Hey is there a way for patients/caregivers to get involved? I'm particularly interested in finding ways to collect data on trials that are in progress but haven't published results yet. Secondarily trying to build an evidence-based approaches to selecting low-risk adjuvant therapies that hasn't been directly proven in clinical trials.
I think Toyota is right, but they would need to take the lead and build a hydrogen refill network and stop relying on others for it.

Similarly BEVs other than Tesla make the drive between Sf and LA impractical at best, because refueling is difficult.

The real genius of Tesla is the vertical integration of the super charger.
This. Say what you will about Bezos, but he seems to be the most impressive tech founder out of any of FANG and any of the large unicorns founded after Facebook.

Such an impressive list of deft moves that he made (in a range of different areas) one after another between '94 and 2000 to set Amazon on a path to meteoric growth.
I have the same problem with perfume, cologne, and hairspray. Even more of a problem with automobile exhaust. I don't complain to HR though.
I'm not buying, playing, pirating or otherwise touching EA products on any platform since 2011 (or 2012) and recommend you do the same. This is truly anti-consumer company and it deserves to die forgotten in a ditch.
Maybe Tesla would use more robots from Tesla Grohmann Automation in this last Giga Factory to offset the labor cost in Germany...
It seems like a flaw in the system though because those micro-optimizations are what usually drives the free market and accumulate to become huge. If all buying decisions were just made on the same coarse decision making then the useful competition-by-endless-small-improvements would be replaced with competition-by-insidious-marketing, which I guess is the state that pain medicine is in.
> It's clear Amazon and online retailing has decimated them

And yet, somehow, Best Buy is doing fine apparently.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jillgriffin/2018/07/27/best-buy...
Well, I suppose we can all add U-Haul to the list of companies that make absurd decisions that damage their brand.

Not dinging anyone who works there, but if you work for a budget trucking company and can't have a cig after what, I am assuming, isn't a great job in the first place?
I mean the first mistake is paying EA anything. That company is a plague.
If e-bikes are the future of transportation why dont people just get a vespa?
Not GP, but...

1) Practical quantum computing seems to have made little practical progress this decade. This is mostly a gut feeling on my part since I have no professional experience in the field.

2) Starlink will be a major competitor in the rural ISP space. The extremely low maximum density of ground stations means that they can't possibly be a major competitor in a dense urban core or even a dense suburban community.

3) I don't see any particular reason to believe this will happen anymore than that it won't.

4) In the sense that 1 is "more common" than 0, this one is probably true, but I have a suspicion that the economics don't work out nearly as well as we hope. The second half is already true (I work on research that supports making those new regulations)

5) ~~Not much of a prediction. It's already true in some circles.~~

Edit: I should say that it's already stylish in some circles to not own a smartphone. So far everyone I've met in that category still caries some kind of cellular device capable of making emergency calls at the very least. With a near-ubiquitous cellular network available, it's very hard to articulate a reason why you wouldn't use it in an emergency situation. Furthermore, with the rise of the cell network, payphones have fallen out of fashion, meaning that there's even less infrastructure today that there once was for those who wish to eschew cell phones entirely for whatever reason.

6) Again, not my area of professional expertise, but I don't think solar on every roof in the US would actually be enough affect this change. Wind is likely to meet push-back from neighbors, and I don't even know why hydro is listed. The grid will change radically over the coming century, but the next decade is going to see continued incremental change to draw down coal generation and increase storage capacity.
I think the original poster made the same mistake I did, and took the wrong lesson from the situation.

The startup idea sounds great and I would enthusiastically start working on it right now as a cofounder.

The problem was spending money before having a sense of how to get more.

That’s all.

If the startup could have been run entirely without paying contractors or incurring other serious expenses, the poster could have run it for longer, and iterated on models longer, until the product/market fit got dialed in.

There just wasn’t enough runway, enough iteration.
Employers also carry some of the burden. By making their pool healthier U-Haul gets a better deal.
You are implying that effort should be correlated to pay. It isn't. The hardest job I ever had was being a bartender/barback at a very busy bar - it sure didn't pay much.

It's possible that one programmer can bring generate and capture more economic value by doing one "not very complicated thing" that gets pushed to 1 billion instances[0] than a brain surgeon can by doing one extremely complicated thing on a few dozen or hundred people per year.

'curl' is not complicated, but it clearly has incredible economic value, and has an install base of over 1 billion devices.

[0] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/09/17/the-worlds-biggest-cu...
E.g. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-13/is-the-prescribed-bur...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/12/is-th...

There are 2 political arguments against "controlled burnoffs", and one much more practical argument against them:

1) it damages the environment, destroys nature and ecological systems. it kills animals and plants. Lots of them. It's bad for biodiversity.

Fire dept response: it does, but less than the fires that are prevented would.

2) Budget cuts.

3) controlled burning is normally done after winter (when firemen would have to do them in the dark or make them smaller), but before the dry season gets too dry and the risk of fires spreading too far becomes to great. This period has become shorter and shorter in recent times, due to climate change.
Unremarkables
for OP;

but for everyone else, ChromeOS is the perfect OS, it only does what you bought it for

no bloated bullshit, no extra useless features

unlike windows, it doesn't requires a 512gb ssd to be fast and energy efficient

and unlike linux, it doesn't require 50years of experience as a CS slave
The survival of hundreds of people has more value than freedom of an individual in his free time.
One should not be allowed to put other people at risk for fun/entertainment/whatever.

Profit for a business, on the other hand, must not have more value than freedom of an individual.
Otherwise, taking this to the extreme, it means slavery. Max profit for no freedom.
Thanks for answering so many questions on this! One more from me: Did you consider Google Cloud PubSub [1]? In general I'd be interested in your rationale for moving from a managed solution to something you maintain yourself, because in my experience the down the line costs of maintaining your own solution are often underestimated.

[1] https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/docs/overview
How about cargo bikes, also sometimes called Christiania bikes: https://www.christianiabikes.com/uk/category/models/ ? I've seen people transport kids in them, their lower center of gravity make it safer for the kids.

They even have e-models..
Eye color correlates a lot with skin color so it would also be illegal, otherwise you can filter out almost all black people by only accepting blue eyed applicants.
Whoa, I had no idea the trucker's hitch was a real knot; I thought it was an Ylvis joke.
I think there are some similarities because libinput can be used on X as well as with Wayland.
Have a source for that? I can't find a mention of that anywhere.
So, the future of transportation is an e-bike with more power so it can have higher top speeds, carry larger loads, and operate more safely in adverse weather conditions.

Of course, with higher top speeds you will probably want a windshield to protect the driver from bugs, debris, or precipitation. Hard to concentrate when you are getting hit in the face with stuff at 45 kph.

And really once the windshield is there, you should put a roof on too to provide better protection from the elements.

And a passenger seat or two. Maybe some storage. Maybe another wheel (or two) for better stability.

And then you have an e-car.
Yes! Andrew Lo has a great talk on a related subject - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzELyaVf0v8
Hey, hey -- what about a grant from WHO, NIH or NHS? What about having a national or world government continuously sponsor this work as a public resource?
I would argue that the US is experiencing a lot of problems, particularly the rise of Trumpism, because there's now a large contingent of immigrants (many not-so-recent) who don't speak English and have a very different culture. This has stoked a lot of xenophobia, and calls to "build the wall".

China is almost all Mandarin. The SARs are really small exceptions and not like the rest of the country (by design).

Japan's main problems are a low birthrate, and inefficient business processes (too many people spending too much time at work, but not actually being productive). But still, they have one of the world's leading economies.

India is really a mess in a lot of ways, and as you point out, it isn't doing nearly as well as China economically even though it's started out from relatively the same point.

There are counterpoints, however.
1) Switzerland. 4 languages, and the country is both economically super-prosperous (per capita) and safe, with the highest standard of living in the world.
2) Canada. 2 main languages (English, French), and standard of living at least as good as neighboring USA.

I think the difference is that, in both these places, these countries basically started out with these major languages, and made very conscious decisions early on to accommodate these languages and regional cultures, and to be a place where they could all get along. But even this hasn't been perfect: Quebec has long had a separatist movement.
I’ve been doing a commute from Cambridge ma to Boston with an ebike this year. I agree it’s big plus is being able to pick up speed rapidly in traffic.

The being able to easily keep up with traffic is what I miss when I switch to my regular bike, which I had been comuting with for years.

Also I ride it more than my traditional bike because it is easier. (I rode to work today) Parking is easier too though I’m still a little nervous leaving it on the street (I have bike cages at home/work)

I’ll second your recommendation of giving it a try.
You should see the Fry's on Northwest Hwy near Garland. It's almost scary, it has a sketchy bazaar feeling. A couple rows of shelves have just random perfume and colognes. All the televisions and stuff have 1/8" of dust on them. It must be more expensive to shut it down than to keep it running.
Well as a work machine in enterprise environment you want to have data under your own control and Google not even fails to deliver, but it is increasing security risk for your data (corporate espionage on USA government level is just one thing that comes to my mind). I have shown this post to a few security guys and they had quite a good laugh. I personally wouldn't use it even if it was free. But I don't live or work in states, maybe google is ok for USA companies.
Unicode scissors emoji originate from two sources, and they both contribute to this plethora of non-closing scissors.

First, Unicode scissors character (U+2702) originates from ITC Zapf Dingbats series 100 [1]. As a result they have, unlike most Unicode characters, pretty much standardized reference glyphs. And scissors glyphs do not completely close too there.

Second, the original emojis were implemented in limited space (say, 16 by 16 pixels) and the design was constrained. In some platforms (especially SoftBank) they were animated instead, and indeed there were some reference emojis that close only in the animation [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapf_Dingbats

[2] https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html#2702
> autonomous blockchains

It just _has_ to be satire, though!
> So, now you are also forced to install these spyware-like sidecars to the game that monitor you and try to figure out if you are doing any of this?

I'm pretty sure the anti-cheat is just a library/module/etc. that's installed with the game. I can't imagine that it's a completely separate program that you install (unless it happens to be the game launcher).
I honestly don't know. I got a 2019 at the end of this year right before the 2020's were released. I had found a couple decent deals on Hyundai Konas, which still have the full federal tax credit, and when I pointed this out to the Chevy dealer they came back with a significant amount of dealer cash back.

In the end I got $9k off from the dealer and $2k off from a Maine-exclusive tax credit that is related to VW's emissions fraud settlement.

I think I just got really lucky.
Maybe in a small independent pharmacy you have this issue, but biggest pharmacies in the World (CVS, Walgreens, Walmart) the pharmacists will not know the margins of over the counter drugs and have nothing to do with purchasing them.

>Maybe competent but certainly not unbiased.

I suppose they have a bias in the form of legal liability and professional licensure which guide their recommendations. That is, they can be sued for negligence, malpractice and otherwise potentially lose their license to practice. Tech startups are notorious for placing profits before users, and lack accountability in the same way as licensed professionals. In a worst case scenario they fold up shop and move to the next industry to "disrupt".
Might be simpler just to accelerate a small un-crewed ship to approach the speed of light, and strike the planet with it as a kinetic weapon (causing an extinction event but not enough to actually disintegrate the planet). Closely following behind can be a slower ship containing the colonizing party. Then there won't be a need to heat up the target planet.
Treating MP3 files like text
Isn't there a Linux reference gaming platform?
(paywalled) article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1139-x
He should obviously be selling to clinics / hospitals

Plus when did the 'we don't have any budget' excuse stop a SaaS company? That's what you raise VC for - build the product, hand it to the customer for 'free' and charge them what it was really worth based on their usage when you threaten to take it away
This week's best from HN, in audio
Woosh

This is satire of HN, not an actual checklist
Exactly what I said higher up in this thread.
This is because no one pays for journalism anymore.
proton is cancer, thanks to Valve, you can cheat without VAC issues on CS:GO, as long as you are playing with proton, you are safe to cheat
> Make something people want. It’s Y-Combinator’s motto and a maxim of aspiring internet entrepreneurs.

I think it's fine motto for startups that are going to be fueled with angel money.

For bootstrapped startups I think it should be: "Make something people want (to pay for!)."
Just FYI: "Doppelganger" exists in Russia and makes tons of money from government contracts.
That is a thing in the English language, in eg Sweden we do the sensible thing and call the 1900s "nittonhundratalet". The English way is stupid, it is like saying that the current year 2020 should be called "The 2021th year" just to confuse people. I mean it is technically correct, but it is a dumb way to speak.
Part of the Windows 8 (8.1 actually) objectives was to reduce the memory and disk footprint so that cheap tablets could be viable. With WIMBOOT enabled a full 8.1 install could fit in slightly over 3 GB on certain devices (the evolution of WIMBOOT is automativally enabled in 10 when the installer sees fit)
Put your money where your mouth is and short the stock (or buy put options) :)

PS> I am a Tesla owner who then bought the stock as well since the experience was so revolutionary. I agree with the other poster who compared it to the 2007 iPhone.
The Microcenter in my midwest city is doing really well. They recently renovated the entire store and always have the latest computer hardware and knowledgeable staff.
I see. Well with high enough laser intensities the back reflection portion plateaus due to plasma formation [0], while the specular reflection portion could probably be minimised with a suitable prepulse[1,2] to pattern the surface. That said, the reflected intensity is probably still going to be pretty high, so I guess laser weapons are probably best reserved for long range combat.

[0] https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/124726142/...
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21935245
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016943321...
Someone forgot the 1860's
With the exceptions listed, it is isn't it? When was the last time you could by (say) computer hardware cheaper in a store than on amazon? You must have some fantastic local stores compared to me :(
Those people are not looking at the other players’ screens. CS Overwatch works by saving replays and is pretty accurate
There’s also the fact that Ethereum has an almost completely different architecture including block times which affect the frequency of mining, different reward structures, etc.
As far as I know its not necessarily the difference between Bitcoin’s SHA-256 vs Ethereum’s Ethash as much as it is about the architecture itself.
Sneak peek at future of SaaS investing
Can't register.
Postgres is throwing an error and your server is returning a 500
The article actually has a good link to https://www.trinsicoin.com/?focus=ETH where if you scroll down it breaks down the math.

(You have to hover over Blockchain, Mining, and Energy to see the parameters.)
Game community is needing a KYC-type solution. That would require tying accounts to real identities, and if someone performs way above the field, his account is temporarily suspended, until he/she visits the authorized verification center where gaming skill can be verified by a neutral party. If a gamer can prove his skill, an account is unsuspended.
I agree with healthcare insurance being changed.

I will say, just because it costs them more money doesn't mean they should legally be able to act on that.

Many times someone from a certain religion might cost an employer more than someone who doesn't need religious prayer breaks. But legally employers can't act on that.

I'm not saying smoking = religion, but I am saying information available to make logical decisions != the ability to act on that information. Just saying we've already made the decision that we will legally restrict companies from acting on certain pieces of information and therefore we can expand this existing framework to protect other life choices (eating fatty foods, skiing hobby, driving a sports car, having kids, etc)
Even drawing front-to-back you don't need the y-buffer, if you switch the loops: for x ... for y ...

Another trick I now remember was to interpolate the color values on such a y-segment, to reduce the pixelated look.
>We can't do business as usual, that's over.

The alternative is what? Contract GDP in every nation until carbon emissions are below target? You think people will allow you to go through something larger a great depression in order to meet climate targets? Did you not see the shitshow that happened in Chile and France when those governments tried to hike gasoline taxes by a small amount?

There is very little we can do over the next few decades to curb emissions. Solar and wind are not viable replacements for coal and natural gas (and are disastrous for the environment due to the requirement for exotic minerals and land-use requirements). Nuclear power is, but the environmental movement is actively blocking re-investment, and we're so far behind that it would take decades to jump-start the industry. Outside of energy generation, freight (sea and air), as well as air travel have no obvious non-fossil fuel alternatives. There are also thousands of petroleum products that don't have obvious alternatives either.

OK... so let's act. What do you do?