skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Imperial College in London estimated that a total of 4,000 cases of Coronavirus in Wuhan City (with an uncertainty range of 1,000 to 9,700)

This is an estimate with a whole bunch of assumptions (may or may not be true) and known factors and applied to a probabilistic formula (a very simple one too.) Some I'd say this is a very rough attempt.

The 440 confirmed cases released by the daily official press release is a fact, with all of them confirmed with lab tests and been quarantined. Those are live numbers: https://3w.huanqiu.com/a/c36dc8/9CaKrnKp248?agt=8

There is no reason to believe the simply probabilistic model would be accurate (this is also why they suggested that the accuracy is between 1000-9700, almost an order of magnitude difference). And there is no reason to believe their assumptions were right either.

So you are comparing Apples to Oranges.

The best modeling for estimates about infectious disease is to use ordinary differential equation (ODE) to model and estimate with a set of assumptions. It talks about why the ICL's model only applicable to the early stage of the outbreak.[1]

[1]: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Ab0fLOWr_9AvU4RA15rMCg (in Chinese)
The omitted word "These" at the front seems important
Having pushed my share of prams, larger diameter wheels are a plus. But my favorite one for convenience was a folding "umbrella stroller" that I could shake open with one hand while holding a baby with the other.
I suppose that it's only a pity that after 26 years in nonprofits--eight different .orgs--that I have never experienced this. Beware anecdotal data.
I have some familiarity with the .com/.net stuff

Yes the registry is incredibly cheap to run, it’s the name servers themselves that are so expensive (from what I understand this is partially due to uptime requirements.)
I work in computational fluid dynamics. Fortran is very much alive and being updated. The bigger issue, as I see it, is the adoption of newer features by current programmers. I know many people who program in modern Fortran (the 2003 and later standards with object-oriented features), but I also know some people who still program in Fortran 77 (either literally or in spirit). The second group tends to work on older "legacy" projects that may be decades old at this point. The maintainers usually decided that the cost of updating to a newer standard wasn't worth it ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it").

That said, I only write in modern Fortran when I use Fortran. The newer features make it much easier to write complex data structures, in particular.
If someone argues “X implies <you should do something stupid and bad>. It is absurd to conclude <you should do something stupid and bad>, so therefore, by reductio ad absurdum, X is false.”
your refutation should not be “actually, reductio ad absurdum is invalid.”, but rather “It is not the case that <x> implies <you should do something stupid and bad>”.

Perhaps their derivation of the absurd conclusion from the claim <X> was based on a misunderstanding of the claim <X>, or perhaps their derivation of the absurd conclusion from it was based on some fallacy, or some false assumption.

But reductio is a valid logical step, so long as we have the validity of the argument that the absurd conclusion follows from the premise.
The main premise of this article is that suburbanization led to increased long-term infrastructure costs (because sparse populations require more per-capita spending to deliver power, plumbing, roads, etc.), but failed to generate a commensurate increase in tax revenue. This is much less of a problem than it it seems because:

1. The population is becoming increasingly urban. The trend of suburbanization has not only stopped, it has been reversing for several decades now.

2. When infrastructure fails, there's a very strong incentive to raise money to improve infrastructure. Admittedly this is less effective than preventing failures in the first place, but the challenge of raising tax dollars to fix a bridge becomes much easier when residents can no longer use said bridge to commute and thus have a much larger incentive to pay the necessary taxes.
One idea might be that China could some of the money they're currently using to build their overseas empire to instead renovate these local markets, and the farmers could continue operating but in a lower risk fashion.

Not that this would ever happen, but I doubt it's economically impossible.
> Also proposals to build more houses often are planned on property that is already occupied. In a nearby area they want to tear down an existing school, in other areas they want to take away open space that is used as walking/running/biking paths.

You make it sound like there are roving gangs of housing developers walking the streets at night and knocking things down to put up houses. Nobody's trying to build housing on land they don't own.

>It is _always_ greedy homeowners who worry only about their house price at the expense of everyone else.

Maybe it's not just their house price, but when they're blocking housing because they don't want to have to share the roads with other people or because they're worried about noise somehow then it is selfish. They're preventing younger people from living and advancing their lives because they're afraid that they will somehow be inconvenienced by being in proximity to other people.
The trend to sameness is probably due to two main factors, more comprehensive collision safety laws and the push in many markets for fuel efficiency.

The collision safety regulations appear to have caused side and rear windows to get smaller (probably to improve side impact intrusion protection) and pillars to get wider (rollover protection).

Aerodynamic drag is a major contributor to fuel efficiency. To my eye there has been a trend (in Australia at least) to blur the line between sedans and hatchbacks. Sedan boots/trunks are getting taller and more sloped to smooth the transition from the rear window. The rear of hatchbacks have been also getting more sloped. Both are attempts to get a more tear-drop shape without overly compromising utility.

After many iterations working within the same industry wide constraints, it is not surprising that designers all optimise their designs to similar shapes and sizes.

The same effect can be seen in road bicycles. The UCI imposes limits on wheel size and other physical dimensions on bikes that are allowed to be used in UCI events (pro and amateur racing). Above 30km/hr aerodynamic drag starts to a major effect on the power a cyclist needs to output to maintain speed or accelerate. In recent years bike manufacturers have been wind tunnel tuning their designs more rigorously. This has resulted in the aero road bikes from the major manufacturers converging to almost identical designs. Cycling commentators and journalists have started agitating for relaxation of the UCI rules to try to get some innovation happening again.
Planetary: a VC backed social network built on Scuttlebutt, out of stealth
Link to the site: https://planetary.social/
It's not about typing speed. It's more about comfort and accuracy. Also the cognitive load is really not a thing once you're used to it. Maybe you should learn to accept that some people might be more mentally flexible or skilled than you are rather than assuming people are lying to themselves.
Not at all. Median household income in Kansas City is $45,000. The median home price is $192,000 (4x income). Median income in San Francisco is slightly over double at $95,000. But the median house price is more than quadruple, at $1.7 million (18x income). Median household income in Manhattan is $85,000. Median home price is $1,000,000 (11x income). DC is a bit better. Median income is $85,000 and median home price is around $620,000 (7x income). Of course it goes without saying the median house in Kansas City is bigger than the median houses in those cities.

Also, the income difference is less than a factor of two for the same person. 57% of people in San Francisco have a college degree, versus 45% of people in Kansas City. So part of the difference in median income is due to the difference in education, not the difference in local salaries.
The ZIP Code 97003 took effect on 2014-07-01, when the ZIP Code 97006 was split [2].

ZIP Codes are not geographical entities and don't correspond to geographical extent; rather, they are a hybrid between a discrete number of finite delivery-points and an abstract way of capturing a postal delivery route. They are often abused as geographical entities, which the Census Bureau has tried to rectify with ZCTAs [1], but it's unclear whether most informal use of ZIP Codes is haphazard, or actually conforms to ZCTAs.

However, ZIP Codes directly map to one preferred place name designated by the USPS, and zero or more acceptable alternative place names. These are usually inspired by, but don't necessarily correspond to municipalities and political units that the lots in question belong under.

For both 97003 and 97006, the USPS recommended place name is "BEAVERTON", and other acceptable names are "ALOHA" and "HILLSBORO".

Beaverton's city limits are complicated [3][4]. The city has a map of annexations as well [5]. Cedar Hill was once supposed to be annexed. A court case about the proposed annexation of the Nike HQ resulted in these plans being put on hold [6].

[1] https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/zctas.html [2] https://about.usps.com/news/state-releases/or/2014/or_2014_0... [3] https://www.beavertonoregon.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9005/Cit... [4] https://www.beavertonoregon.gov/DocumentCenter/View/5554/Bea... [5] https://www.beavertonoregon.gov/DocumentCenter/View/843/Anne... [6] https://www.oregonlive.com/oregonianextra/2006/06/appellate_...
I flew with a cat in a carrier. He was quite cooperative, but also quite happy to be free after being in a tiny, loud space for many hours.

Also some airports have animal relief areas on the airside.
There is absolutely zero evidence in that article. A lawsuit is not an indication of guilt by itself, particularly when the plaintiff was recently terminated.
If you're having this issue, I recommend the Fiat 500L. It works for my 6'9" son, with room to wear a hat.
Data integration in practice – fusing conflicting datasources
Alas the Internet was created in a capitalist world, and capitalism loves rent-seeking.
Ask HN: How best to share papers in an open source repo?
So I am planning to release something soon and would like to share the handful of copyrighted papers that have inspired it, which were all obtained publicly on the internet.

Should I find canonical URLs and link, or would it be fine to have a directory with the PDFs for easier reference?
C/C++ will be most likely used for many many decades ahead.
So it's scientific notation in base 2
If an issue takes a lot of time to write, then it's probably not a good first issue. For my project, I found there are all kind of small things that are easy to do but I don't have time, so instead I write a good first issue.

Usually I also put some pointers on how to get started, like "check such method in such file", or "have a look at that reducer action".

It doesn't take long to do this and it's been working pretty well. It's a very good way for new developers to get something done easily and to get familiar with the code base.

As of now there are 40 such issues, including 28 completed: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues?q=label%3A%22good...
Speaking about America, almost everything in a building beyond aesthetics is designed to a CODE MINIMUM. from the hangers that hang the ACT ceiling all the way, and especially to, the structural system. These systems have been designed and tested ad nauseam to provide minimum life safety standards. People in any industry can cut corners and screw up. Special situations can arise that surpass a minimum level standard (Fires started at every exit door, 9.0 earthquake...good luck) The forest you're missing through the trees here is the structured process that forces designers in a mature industry to design to a minimum agreed upon standard. Ironically, I'm highlighting the benefits of regulation...where it makes sense.

the forest I might be missing through the trees is that maybe there is an industry agreed upon standard within the Tech industry. My understanding is almost all of these breaches happen because comically silly mistakes (pw = password), not super high sophisticated attacks.
> Rent is probably cheaper than ownership, except for the investment component.

So, your landlord is cash flow negative? Why would anyone buy property to rent it out if this were the case universally?
If you're talking about the BMW 1-Series this has a peculiarity that most small cars don't have: a rear wheel drive (or all-wheel in some models) and a longitudinal mounted engine. This means substantially less space inside, especially in the back with the higher floor and the drive shaft down the middle. I found the Polo a lot more spacious than that.
Genuine service animals are extremely well behaved. The training is no joke, and a large fraction of the animals fail out. It’s likely that you’ve been on a plane with a service animal and not noticed. Service animals can contentedly sit or lie down silently for hours without attracting attention. They know when they are on the job and they behave accordingly.

As for very long flights, I imagine that a service dog can do its business in a small bag or box. Also, a well trained animal will pee or poop on command before a flight and can go for quite a while without peeing or pooping.

It could make sense to require accredited training programs for service animals. Poorly behaved “service” animals are a problem for those who need real service animals.
Biz Stone, one of investors - https://twitter.com/biz/status/1220048447794900993
My favorite web framework is still Bash on Balls but I like to see that Frotran has entered the game.
No, I don't think an alternative is necessary. It might be enough to say 'this harm is unacceptable; finding an alternative is the people's responsibility'.

For example, this is how the law treats people who sell drugs. Do you make the same argument re: drug dealers needing an alternative source of income before we criminalize it?
Ask HN: What citizen science projects are you working on?
I've been curious lately about what projects out there exist within the realm of Citizen Science. It's kind of hard to find a project that I want to be a part of. I've looked (and still looking) at SciStarter to help me in my search.

The one project that I've found (through the Moon Society Slack channel) that I ended up joining, is Lunar Homestead (http://lunarhomestead.com/). They're working on research involving lunar habitation and the like and they're definitely in the realm of "citizen science".

After a while I figured it might be a good idea to ask the community here to get a better idea of what could exist. So...

What citizen science projects are you working on? Are you looking for others to contribute? What tools besides SciStarter would you recommend for me to find other projects?
Ah. Thanks for the explanation.
HN's comment policy on arguing in good faith seems to apply to this story. Surely we can read her comment and understand her intent rather than find a way to be upset? The media is served by manufacturing and fanning outrage. The HN community shouldn't be part of that, IMO.
For some reason I'm afraid to click on the link.
"Significant" is a typo. It should say "significand", i.e. mantisaa. All normal floating point numbers have an implicit most significant significand bit of 1, meaning they are 1.something * 2 ^ exponent. I cannot type the math properly at the moment.
When I was in high school, we used to refer jokingly to "defenstration of an ecdysiast." I don't remember where we got it from, but it usually was brought up in connection to the highly exaggerated and dramatic way teens tend to tell a lengthy story about their day as if it was the most interesting story ever.
No, Gore Tex -- and all other membrane systems -- rely on DWR to keep the face fabric from wetting out. The face fabric is only water repellent if it's finished with oil, wax, or DWR. When the finish is degraded, rain will wet out the shell and breathability plummets. There are no exceptions. If you invent a fabric that is both breathable and permanently water repellent (as in, it sheds water in beads), then I promise you'll become wealthy beyond your wildest dreams :)
Service animals are meant to be able to help accommodate physical tasks. Most animals aren't good for these tasks and there are a few animals that work well for this.

Emotional support animals can have a much broader definition because what someone derives emotional support from can vary widely. No one would argue that a turtle is likely to help someone walk down the street. However, emotional attachments could make a turtle emotionally supportive. This is why emotional support animals are such a nebulous category.

Some people will argue for registration or notes from doctors. However, that really just means that people with means get what they want (whether they need it or not) while other patients might go lacking. For example, medical marijuana was a way for friends of mine to go to a doctor they knew would prescribe it, pay a little money, and get access to it. A registration system that relied on such a sign-off might similarly be a very small hoop to jump through. Plus, what happens when someone arrives with a fake registration? This isn't even a judgement on that person in particular. Unscrupulous people will create registries that are fake and get people to pay fees and provide them with a print out.

This is something that's really hard to get right. Let's say that 99% of people are good people. If you're on a 300 seat plane, the likelihood of at least one crappy person is decent.

I think this goes deeper into what we do about the small minority of people who think that anything they do to get what they want is ok. What do we do about the person who thinks, "I'm just running into the store for 5 minutes, I can park in the bike lane"? In that case, it's easy because there isn't a legitimate reason for that behavior. But when there are legitimate reasons, it becomes a lot more difficult. What do we do about the person who thinks, "I won't have to pay to fly my pet if I claim they're treating a psychological issue"?

In that case, there's no great answer. Barriers can also harm people who need the animals. Given what I've seen with medical pot, I'm not sure that it would provide a large barrier for people with a little money/privilege.

I personally find it angering when people abuse systems set up to help people. I really dislike flying with animals on a plane. At the same time, I'm not sure I could support this rule change. Emotional support isn't the same as physical assistance. It doesn't require the same training or animal types. Maybe we're going to start saying (as a society) that if you need emotional support, you'd better get it from one of the few sanctioned animal types. I think the biggest issue is requiring the same training as physical assistant animals. Service animal training costs a lot of money and that's going to put a large burden on people that might not have that kind of money.

What do we do in situations where a small number of people abuse something meant to improve people's lives when there's no great way of discerning who is legitimate in their need and who is abusing it?
I updated my .org domains for the max 5 years that my provider would let me. At least I'm locked in for now. The whole thing seems shady though I really want to believe that the new owner will play nice. As humans we can decide that altruism > greed, something tells me that greed will rule here.
> I just remember being so blown away that she assumed a stranger would be 100% on board with this tactic as to tell me about it unvarnished that I was stunned into silence.

It doesn't matter if you're on board with this tactic or not. What are you going to do? Tell the flight attendant? Will they believe you, or her? Do you think they will want to adjudicate a 'he said she said', when the consequences of adjudicating wrongly might be 'we harassed a person who has a legitimate service animal'? [1]

Are they going to throw the person in question off the plane, with a parachute? Ban them from flying with that airline? Sue them for tricking the airline?

Will taking any of these actions make the flight attendant's life easier?

The person who told you probably expected there to not be any consequences, even if you rat them out, and they are probably correct.

[1] The ADA loves these kinds of situations. I would be shocked if airlines didn't train their staff to uncritically accept claims that a dog is a service animal. The cost of accepting a dog on board are low. The cost of telling a person with a disability to go pound sand can be a six-figure lawsuit.
The thing that made floating point easy to understand for me was the concept of a dyadic rational [1]. Those are just the rational numbers whose denominator is a power of two (e.g. 1/2, 3/16, 61/32). Fundamentally, binary floating point represents dyadic rationals (not counting special stuff like NaN, infinity, etc.) To represent such a number in floating point form, just write it as a/2^b. Then the mantissa is a, and the exponent is -b.

This intuitively makes it obvious why, for example, 1/3 can't be represented. I find the rational form like a/b easier to understand than the "scientific notation" form like a×2^b.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyadic_rational
The example of Tokyo is showing that even if the population decreases, the urban center can keep growing for a while because of the benefits of urbanization.

On top of that, I anticipate growing displacement due to climate change. This is not the time to slow down home construction.
It would get them moving, but not necessarily in the direction MSFT would like. If they are forced to change OS, they might think twice about moving to yet another OS made by a company that just did the forcing in such a ruthless way.

Mind you, I would totally agree with such a decision, if MSFT decided to enforce it, but I dont think it will necessarily play out in a way that is advantageous to MSFT, hence why they haven’t done so yet.
On Replacing OperationQueue
I believe service animal training is already accredited. The issue here is that businesses are in the habit of trusting the "Service Animal" labeling and not checking if it's genuine or someone's ESA.
Who Made the Spyware Used to Hack Jeff Bezos’ Phone?
I believe it is because they’re made of plastics which need more width to provide the same strength.

The narrower seats (I used Radians) all appear to have metal frames instead. And they weigh more!
I don't think that's a casual relationship though. SUV drivers are probably more distracted because they are more likely to have kids in the back, they might just be worse drivers, etc. Too many factors to say if it's the SUV's fault.
Same. Read every other Adams book at least a dozen times. That one sits on the shelf untouched.
How long ago was that? Rules have changed a lot in the last 1-2 years, and "registering online" doesn't really cut it anymore.

These days, traveling with an ESA is much harder. You need to actually submit a form signed by your doctor / psychologist / therapist to the airlines 48 hours prior to departure to register the animal on the flight.