skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Or should we abjure smartphone-powered contact tracing?

Yes we should, if we complain about surveillance of Uighurs in China:

https://www.ft.com/content/dfec4ac4-6bf5-11e9-80c7-60ee53e66...

Speaking of China, ironically they are already running out of new patients:

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/gilead-cancels-second-re...

So probably Apple and Google have to hurry to use covid as an excuse to push their new data collection solution.
Coronavirus Spotlights Swedish Segregation
I'd be very interested to know how that works. But I don't think they have it.

The boxes they draw are very wobbly and dimensions expand and contract directly with sensor input. Maybe they only show fused output (in itself an achievement) and there is a later step they don't show. That would be weird though because if they want to brag about their model they would definitely show it if it was any good.
“Many of us would like to pin the cause on one political party or another, on one government or another. But the harsh reality is that it all failed — no Western country, or state, or city was prepared — and despite hard work and often extraordinary sacrifice by many people within these institutions. So the problem runs deeper than your favorite political opponent or your home nation.”

I stopped reading here. I thought this (HN) was a discussion board of thoughts outside the political realm. But this is clearly a political statement begging for a deeply partisan response. Or, worse, a gross misunderstanding of the last century of political history which contributes gravely to an incorrect recollection of all that has unfolded. In effect establishing a deeply political conclusion to the benefit of one specific party at the cost of another.
Certificate transparency (http://www.certificate-transparency.org/) solves the real problem of allowing website owners to check that no one issues illegitimate certificates for their domains. I believe it is technically a blockchain although it doesn't have most attributes traditionally associated with blockchains (decentralized, PoW).
Another Googler here, thanks for saving me the typingm

Yes, Google does unethical things. This sucks and I feel uncomfortable supporting it. Quitting is just too costly in terms of personal cost and would not have much effect.
As far as I understand Sia is functionally equivalent to S3: You're not getting content the "producer" wants, you're getting exactly the content you, as a consumer, want.
I would go as far to say the _majority_ of information spread through Facebook is fake news. So when does "protecting people from dangerous information" become censorship?

No the real solution is people actually need to be taught critical thinking skills at school. It's not Facebook's role to be the next nanny state.
Three letter agencies can just go ask the phone company for a wiretap in their country . They are also interested in performing similar tasks elsewhere in the world ;)
I tend to agree that it is baseless but not the for the reasons you mention. I don't trust Apple or Google with my personal data. But from what I understand of this protocol, no personal data is shared with Google or Apple, only a randomly generated identifier IF you elect to declare yourself contaminated. And this identifier has no other value to anyone other than to notify the holders of smartphones that have been in close proximity with you over a limited period. What the article is saying is that they don't trust big tech to stick to that protocol.
I think this is the guy spreading FUD about this last week. He’s back spreading the FUD again this week.

In his analysis he keeps ignoring that the flow of data is user-controlled.

You need to opt-in to start this this, not just take an OS update.

You also need to install an app and opt-in to allow it to use the data.

Looking at the docs, the user also needs to approve at the point where an app receives the day and duration of contacts with an infected person. The only thing an app that you’ve already downloaded and opted-in to can do without further permission if report some contact with an infected person: not who or even which daily tracking ids, not when within the last 14 days. That won’t make a tool of mass surveillance.

In places he acknowledges some of this, but his analysis proceeds as if the user-controlled nature of this doesn’t exist.

This is deeply despicable.

To the extent this guy and people like him can sow distrust of this platform, the weaker privacy-preserving covid19 contact tracing will be.

That leads to more death and deeper economic ruin.

There are various other problems with the analysis here: For example (just a selection) (1) this platform doesn’t require any more trust from Google and Apple than before. They’ve always been capable of turning your phone into a tool of mass surveillance, one much more effective than what this platform allows. (2) This system cant’t be turned into a tool of mass surveillance with the flip of a virtual switch at Apple or Google HQ. The software to expose the data won’t exist and so would have to be developed, tested and released. This guy is using a Hollywood movie level understanding of of software systems here.

By the way, this guy is a professor with a specialty in privacy, so we know he knows better.

That means all of this is malicious. I don’t know what he has to gain from pushing this FUD, but I do know he doesn’t mind getting a bunch of people killed or putting them through economic hardship.

He should be using his expertise to do an honest and competent analysis of this system so that it could be improved.
Can you add a little more color commentary? I haven't used datadog, but they seem clear that there's both a logging and metrics (apm) side to their product. Is the logging side neglected somehow?

I see, for example, docs on how to log from Python: https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/python-logging-best-practices...
Would that mean that any assassination done with a weapon is a failure?
Wasn't complaining against your model; just correcting the parent's usage of the terms.
Hi HN, first time posting here!

I started this project last year when I was looking for something fun to learn Rust with and I had Peter Shirley's excellent Ray Tracing in a Weekend series of books recommended to me. In the process I got interested in learning ray-tracing for its own sake so I decided to finish all three books and I am now considering continuing this further on my own.

I am sharing in case this is useful to others who are on a similar path to where I was.
I suppose your right.

It doesn't seeem like this would add any new capabilities, it merely makes it easier/cheaper to have this kind of info.
Part of me says well if we could just put rents on hold, that would take care of the obvious problem. But [K]N95/FFP2 masks for all, and high-scale testing and tracing makes going back to work a lot more appealing.
You are wrong! Corporate person hood is a thing. It just turns out that the definition of a corporation could also be the definition of a sociopath.
He probably means the distinction between jobs that are innovative or not, but he's explaining this to a 7-year old, so making stuff is a reasonable approximation of that word.

(I just checked with my kid if he knew what innovative is and he answered it mostly right, but he's 13)
Surely, for these two hypothetical people, this sentence rests on where the original capital came from?
The world is not an even playing field. you can be born into wealth as well as be born into poverty.
And inherit either too.
It is usable for reading and editing files. Not something I'd use all day, but if I need to edit a huge file, there aren't really great options for that.
Google and Apple have come up with a somewhat ingenious scheme to mitigate this crisis while preserving privacy to the greatest possible extend.

Self-appointed privacy experts aren’t going to do their cause any favors by reflexively finding/imagining fault with it. This article comes surprisingly close to literally “crying wolf”.
Companies have a culture, which evolves over time and is driven by humans and their morals/priorities, reflected in their actions and handed down through "generations".

Yes, they can be evil.
Tor needs two things: more publicity and a public fund. I think many people would donate if they would find up about Tor and why it is important.
Blitz chess is not ‘standard’ chess. This is not a controversial fact.
Luckily there isn't really any advice there, it is just a bunch of narcissistic rambling.
Logo or Scratch.
Wait, because you didn't fully understand their reasons, you are now assuming that there is a "real reason" that was deliberately not stated?
Yeah. I’d also add that goofing off isn’t ok, in the sense that it’s time that’s wasted typically on unimportant time wasters while if you could get off early you could use that time for something useful, like spending it with family or on exercise or a hobby. But you can’t do those things because you’re still technically on the clock, so spend the time on HN or twitter or whatever instead, not helping yourself or your employer.
I am well convinced this is just a cover for them to release the information they already are collecting without admitting they track everyone everywhere.
While I'm not a fan of "visual programming languages", I think Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) and ScratchJr (http://scratchjr.org/) are good. ScratchJr is made for the younger ones, "no reading required" (but knowing the digits/numbers is helpful)
Modern consensus is that 4 is the real magic number. Humans can store only four chunks in short-term memory tasks.

For working memory and visual memory the number 4 pops up again and again.

When you are holding 5-9 things in memory you can't 'work with them' effectively. You might be chunking objects together or alternating very fast. Verbal memory can be tricky that way.
(computer analogy: 4 is number or registers, 3-5 other objects may be stored in L1 cache).

Good starting point: Visual short term memory http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Visual_short_term_memory

[1]: Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185. doi:10.1017/S0140525X01003922

[2]: Cowan, N., Elliott, E. M., Saults, J. S., Morey, C. C., Mattox, S., Ismajatulina, A., et al. (2005). On the capacity of attention: Its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes. Cognitive Psychology, 51, 42-100. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2004.12.001

[3]: The Magic Number 4 ± 0: A New Look at Visual Numerosity Judgements (1976)
doi: 10.1068/p050327

[4]: The Magical Mystery Four: How is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why? (2010) doi: 10.1177/0963721409359277
I enjoy not having to commute to work, just to sit in a noisy open plan office. At home I have peace and quiet and no distractions. My colleagues and I have daily video meeting, including time for social conversation.

On the other hand, I am sorely missing the concerts, festivals and other social events I normally do in my free time. Everything has been cancelled until the 31st of August, which has completely wiped out the festival season.

I fully expect this policy to be extended, so that only small events are allowed at first. Odds are the next festival I will be able to attend will be in November at the earliest.

So it's 50/50 for me. I have gotten back into some old hobbies again, now that I have more free time, but I sorely miss social interaction, despite being rather introverted.

Hopefully we will see some positive effects of this lockdown, such as challenging the idea that medical services should be profitable at all costs.
I wonder what you think any of that has to do with Bluetooth-based contact tracing?
What makes certain agglomerations of atoms "living beings"? I don't see a fundamental distinction between "alive" and "not alive" that would apply to humans yet would not also apply to larger organizations.

Now, the question of whether certain companies should be considered "evil" may not be something I want to spend a lot of time on, but the arbitrary philosophical distinction that only humans within those companies can be "evil" makes the discussion even less interesting.
German companies have other tools at their disposal to get through tough times before having to lay off people:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/03/kurzarbeit-germany-is-using-...

It worked well a decade ago, how well it works this time remains to be seen, but at least it's better than firing people right away (and then not getting them back and having to train new people when the crisis is over).
your video has no sound, voice over or explanation _what_so_ever_. again... you built the thing, so you know what's going on. how am i, as a potential customer, suppose to know what this is and does. you can defend yourself til you're blue in the face but that doesn't make the video any more clear to a potential customer. I would suggest that you look at these other product demonstration videos for inspiration.

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/demo-video

i'm not trying to be a jerk. you have most likely put an incredible amount of time and energy into bringing this product to life. don't let it fail because you refuse to take another day and demonstrate it properly.
> A "perfectly designed" decentralized system may be superior, but I don't believe it's possible to perfectly design an incentive structure from the get-go. The world is incredibly complex, and once you have a bug or mistake in your decentralized system, it's doomed because it can be exploited. There are already countless examples of various tokens and blockchains being hacked/exploited. A centralized, human-led organization is less efficient, but more resilient to such things.

Part of the issue here is that the blockchain space as a whole has been _super_ eager to rush ahead of the safety margins and build everything they can imagine rather than build everything that's comfortably within our understanding of how it works.

I would describe a lot of the building happening today to be similar to Mesopotamians trying to build aircraft carriers. Like yeah, boats are one of the most important inventions in history, but you can't just go from river boat to crossing the ocean in one step.
I don't think its a lack of perspective. Any moves they make that makes us lose some of the freedom on the internet (and in real life now) will not be temporary. It will outlive the COVID19 crisis.
> And the borrowing was deliberately encouraged because people in debt are slaves to their employers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX-P4mx1FLU
Outside of cities on limited access highways seem like the much easier situation--and, frankly, a pretty significant win for both comfort and safety once people give up their dream of having a personal chauffeur for their entire lives. It's self-driving in e.g. Manhattan or Boston that I can't really begin to imagine in less than decades.
Not much you can do about it, but when I saw the URL I thought it would be minimalist recipes, i.e. the "core" of a recipe like the ones in books like Ratio [1] where the author describes recipes simply in simple ratios of its main ingredients, and then only mentions how it can be customised in different ways.

[1] https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Ratio.html?id=yXwYoXm...
Our rigged economy: banks have all the power without the responsibility [video]
While the analyses above suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal7 and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 concludes that since maybe (because computational analysis) it isn't as efficient for the receptor binding it wasn't purposefully manipulated. Maybe making the most efficient virus was not the goal, maybe there were many trials and many attempts to get a virus with certain qualities and this one was a failure that got mishandled.

---

Anyway, collecting viruses is had work, as shown in this video from December 10, 2019 by the Shanghai Media Group (SMG, one of China's largest state-owned media): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovnUyTRMERI

The road is bumpy but we must learn to stick to our initial choice when we feel confused and lost. In the past 10 years we have visited every corner of Hubei Province. We explored dozens of undeveloped caves and studied more than 300 types of virus vectors. But I do hope these virus samples will only be preserved for scientific research and will never be used in real life. Because humans need not only the vaccines but also the protection from their nature.
As someone who has been sheltering in place in NYC for the past three weeks, what is going on in the news media’s portrayal of New York? I’ve had random acquaintances reach out from abroad and across the country who I haven’t talked to in months or years reach out to see ‘how we’re surviving‘. The only people I know who fled New York did so because they owned larger homes which would be more comfortable, rather than a fear of the virus.

You’d also be surprised how hard it is to escape to New Zealand right now.
Atbswp, a Minimalist Macro Recorder
Why they wouldn't say that this will be removed after pandemic is over is beyond my understanding.
I think a better question is: Is there a google employee that doesn’t use Google products for personal use (search, youtube, android), and is there a fb employee that doesn’t have a personal fb account?
No. Because tin-pot shitholes -- and the people trying to make them -- have, can, and will always find some new "threat" with which to justify taking away civil liberties. Things similar to what you have said here about "nuanced reality" with respect to civil liberties have always been for me a pretty good smell test for underlying authoritarian beliefs. In ANY context, it's possible to point to something as justification for taking away civil liberties in the name of safety and security. Yesterday it was internet death threats and human trafficking, today the pandemic, tomorrow who knows, but I promise there will be one.
And that's why you see advocation for systems like Bitcoin to ossify, and get to a state where the protocol can no longer be adjusted.

I totally agree with you, if someone has the ability to make good changes, that same someone has the ability to make bad changes. And a blockchain is best able to deliver on its promise as a tech when nobody has the ability to make bad changes. Therefore, mature blockchains really should be rigid entities.
The functionality is an enabler for authoritarian countries though
I see a lot of pseudo-communists point this out constantly, how evil it is to make money.

I would call them psuedo-communists because they continually engage in the same self-centered practices that corporations do, but it’s “okay” for individuals or hipster small businesses but not for larger companies.

Money is seen as some kind of evil but all it is is an exchange method. It’s a way to convert one type or good or labor into another.

The evil practices tied into money are human evils. Money is impartial and neutral, therefore trying to gain money is not inherently evil or good.
> what would be the right percentage? Surely not 100%?

You say that like 100% is some kind of meaningful threshold. It should be a lot more than 100%, for the same reason that spending on growing crops in China is more than 100% of spending on growing crops in Antarctica, or spending on basketball coaching for men who are six feet tall is more than 100% of spending on basketball coaching for men who are four feet tall.
> ... when today there are people ...

This sounds a lot like whataboutism.

> The framing of your question has no good answer like the classic “are you still beating your wife?”

I don't agree your analogy holds.

1. That famous question was rhetorical, this one isn't;

2. That was a riposte to a grand claim that questions can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" and no explanation whatsoever, the "framing" of this one — i.e., the expanded text after the headline — clearly asks for explained responses and not a simple "yes" or "no".
I use Amazon Smile to donate to Tor. It's not much, but it's something.
Not sure if it's still the case but it used to be that employees used their FB accounts as logins to work systems.
On the other hand, some tests could be aligned enough with the needs of a specific application and prove that a PRNG is good, not only probably good.

For example, if a game uses a PRNG to "stretch" a random seed for procedural generation purposes conditional probabilities are important (to avoid spurious correlations between features) but period is completely irrelevant (even a relatively short period would be many orders of magnitude larger than output size).
The Local Housing Allowance pretty low but you'd be able to claim the it, housing element of UC, on top of UC.
Hi.

> but they seem clear that there's both a logging and metrics (apm) side to their product.

yes they have those two sides. what they do not have is an error tracking side; something like sentry[1].
errorship exists to bring the error tracking side into datadog.

The logging side of datadog is like splunk or elasticsearch, and their APM side is like newrelic. errorship is bringing the error tracking side.

some of the analogies may not apply 100%, but I hope I'm making sense.

1. https://sentry.io/
Looks really cool. How does this get around NAT?
I've read about YIMBY groups before, particularly the one called BARF (if I remember correctly). This is a great start to the type of work that needs to be done.

However, I have to ask: What is your group's funding situation? Who is bankrolling the effort? Is it grassroots funded, or are there wealthy benefactors who agree with the objectives (or, from a more cynical perspective, might be using your group for something)?

For the record, I believe both approaches can work. We have obviously seen the wealthy fund politics in favor of their interests and successfully get their way, but there have been grassroots successes as well. In particular, I am thinking of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with its cause, the NRA has 5+ million dues-paying members and it has been extremely successful at deploying those funds to achieve its very specific political objectives.

On a more abstract note: the founders of America may have originally envisioned a system where various interest groups debate the issues and arrive at a governing consensus, but the system has [d]evolved into one where those groups compete to raise funds that can channeled to lawmakers to encourage them to implement preferred policies. Some groups recognized this long ago.
Silent But Deadly: Welrod Mk IIA

https://youtu.be/d12AjvEsaHg

MR73 Sniper Revolver in .357 Magnum

https://youtu.be/P1zEUGck8NE

Forgotten Weapons is great YT channel...
I believe that ethics are incompatible with capitalism, so this kind of personal choice doesn't change anything. You can change jobs from one evil company to another.

What would work is enough people willing to organise politically. Unions, people. This is a synchronization problem.
Do you have an idea on how to implement a pause function into the economy? We live with the flue, but actually a pause could help there too to stop the spread in the season.

Who pushes the pause button? How do the businesses agree on pushing their pause button at the same time?

Should there be a pausing fund? Paid in by all businesses that make business overseas?

I find this interesting. Reminds me a little bit on traffic jams. If cars were automated, all cars could start/stop at the same time.