skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Some of us have longer memories of Microsoft's game-plan - embrace and extend. With so man now willing to grant Microsoft open source cred don't forget that it wasn't so long ago that Microsoft was running a Linux patent racket. If we allow The Beast to monopolise open source development tools we have only ourselves to blame.
I aspire to contribute intrigue to the world.
Sad reality, adequately explained by game theory: https://ncase.me/trust/
If its secret or not publicly available people will argue using Occam’s razor or that only “State actors” could use this. With the subtext being your not important enough.

With the data public its more akin to driveby ssh login attempts. Not being important doesn’t mean your not under attack and people can take the necessary precautions.
“one of the most oppressive regimes on the planet.“

Does North Korea have any competition for this title? I thought they were number one on that list.
If the ICO decides you're in breach of the rules, and has reached out to you to help you comply and you aren't receptive you're just going to end up in court and you can argue your case there, and if you can't trust your courts then you've got other problems.
I really think the use of remote, undocumented and unknown code just needs to end. Including the SDK which can make changes invisibly should never be an acceptable practice.

And it's why I am weary of installing apps in general. Tip: use f-droid, check privacy exodus and stick to the browser where possible, where you can have much greater control, and not be spied on by FB.
file this under: you get exactly what you deserve....
"The essential idea is that air is ionized to a plasma, which is rapidly heated and allowed to expand to generate thrust."

So this is just a conventional heat engine, with an electric heater. This heater may be able to get the air much hotter than other methods, but the thing about a heat engine is that you cannot get useful work out unless the working fluid can expand sufficiently. An afterburner creates more thust by heating the air to a higher temperature than could be tolerated by the turbine, but the air is by then at a relatively low pressure, and so the Carnot efficiency is very poor - most of the extra fuel's energy goes into producing a hotter (and very visible) exhaust plume.

So, for this to be a component of a jet engine, it will need a compressor comparable to, or with an even higher presure ratio, than in current jet engines, and that compressor will have to be powered somehow (IIRC to the tune of about 50,000 SHP in the biggest engines now in use.)

For the most part, it makes no sense to use electricity to power a heat engine. In guessing where this might be useful, the only scenario I have come up with is for hypersonic ramjets, where electric motors turning fans are not an alternative, and possibly especially on worlds where the atmosphere does not support combustion.
They had some big partnership deal about 8 years ago which involved some low level integration. It also gave Spotify access to more Facebook user information than what was originally authorized, like letting Spotify read users' FB messages.

I remember being grandfathered into not having it and Spotify would ask me every time I logged in to integrate my FB account.
> 1. Do a study and check how many people want to be tracked. Don't trust the data from websites because everyone is currently being tricked into accepting. Go out on the street, talk to someone for 5 minutes about how tracking works, how it can lead to more relevant advertising and a potential increase in revenues for the service they're using, but in return their browsing history, purchases, and communication will be tracked and associated with them. How many want to be tracked?

There's a very popular (it's a bit weird that number of reviews is so drastically different between Chrome and Firefox) extension called Honey. Apparently bunch of people install it because it provides free coupons. I don't believe people that use it know that ultimately they are the product.
Then if this can be fixed by a server side change as suggested below, that's worrisome, since it suggests it is communicating with FB even if you don't invoke it.
I can't imagine anything more suspicious looking than that! I'm guessing the US isn't the target audience here.
That and I would suspect that people are eating more "junk", or carbs mixed with sugar and fat. I know I depression-ate out of my prepper stash for the first few weeks.
trying to have me use Nazi's as a role model? ha /s

They did build some cool stuff though
I work in Livermore Computing at LLNL.

We manage upwards of 30 different compute clusters (many listed here: https://hpc.llnl.gov/hardware/platforms). You can read about the machine slated to hit the floor in 2022/2023 here: https://www.llnl.gov/news/llnl-and-hpe-partner-amd-el-capita....

All the machines are highly utilized, and they have fast Infiniband/OmniPath networks that you simply cannot get in the cloud. For our workloads on "commodity" x86_64/no-GPU clusters, we pay 1/3 or less the cost of what you'd pay for equivalent cloud nodes, and for the really high end systems like Sierra, with NVIDIA GPUs and Power9's, we pay far less than that over the life of the machine.

The way machines are procured here is different from what smaller shops might be used to. For example, the El Capitan machine mentioned above was procured via the CORAL-2 collaboration with 2 other national labs (ANL and ORNL). We write a 100+ page statement of work describing what the machine must do, and we release a set of benchmarks characterizing our workload. Vendors submit proposals for how they could meet our requirements, along with performance numbers and test results for the benchmarks. Then we pick the best proposal. We do something similar with LANL and SNL for the so-called commodity clusters (see https://hpc.llnl.gov/cts-2-rfi for the latest one). As part of these processes, we learn a lot about what vendors are planning to offer 5 years out, so we're not picking off the shelf stuff -- we're getting large volumes of the latest hardware.

In addition to the cost savings from running on-prem, it's our job to stay on the bleeding edge, and I'm not sure how we would do that without working with vendors through these procurements and running our own systems.
Quite frankly, "cloud" is a convenience and elasticity service at a steep premium, with downsides.

Contrary to popular belief, it does not in the slightest save you a sysadmin (most just end up unknowingly giving the task to their developers). And contrary to popular belief, the perf/price ratio is atrocious compared to just buying servers.

For some of the loads I had been doing the math for, I could rent a colo and buy a new beefy server every year with money to spare for the yearly cost of something approximating the performance in AWS...
From my skimming of the OP, which references some of this research, I think these prior findings demonstrated strong correlation, but this is the first study that demonstrates some causal relationship.
disturbing and gross
Unpopular opinion: bugs happen. Be bold.
I think we are seeing the beginning of a modern day Young Frankenstein. They put an Abbie Normal Reddit brain in a chat bot!
Yeah, amazes me how many people think everyone is just relaxing at home playing Animal Crossing with paid time off wondering why we can't stay in quarantine indefinitely.
My experience with azure storage didn't make me think it was "designed"...
the real question though is if the library is not even imported into the main app and just left hanging around, linked, would it still crash? i'd be curious to know
This mirrors my experience in many ways. People with legitimate ill intention were a lot more common in my youth and when I was in a lower socio-economic position.

Now I live in a world very similar to the one described by the GP. It took me quite a while to adjust, and I still have my moments.
"The secret to making great barbeque is to make a lot of bad barbeque" ~ Aaron Franklin
The article addresses a decline in critical admissions such as strokes and heart attacks, so that would not explain it.
Cloud servers tend to be more reliable as well if you don't run your own datacenters. We have lost our internet connection or power 3 times in the last year in the office. Its not the end of the world since we can go to 4g for our own usage but if our servers were hosted locally this would be a huge issue.
Ketchup is much more controversial though (das Ketchup? Der Ketchup? Wars have been fought about less controversial things.)
It's the same numerical distance. Look how small the bars are at the anandtech page, https://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU-2019/2247 also does not show you the one is 66% faster - same problem, just inverted. But the original is easier to get, and 1/X style comparisons could work - or in general just "how much faster" bars. Thanks :)
So then perhaps you could mount the remote file system with something like SSHFS and use VS Code locally?

I don’t understand what VSCode could provide that would be useful while not executing any code on the server side. It sounds like what you’re really asking is that vscode be made compatible with older version of glibc?
Zoom dodged this bullet.
Code review of the “Imperial Study” codebase (Covid-19 model)
Thanks for the feedback, I’ll send it to that team!
Great advice. Interrogative questioning was my biggest takeaway from my high school journalism class. We would often have to write interrogative-style fake interviews at the beginning of class and it took a while to develop an intuition for it.
Crime is down, while domestic violence is up. That's evidence people are staying inside more.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52416330

As a counter anecdote, I know many people that only leave their house a few times per week, including for walks. They are definitely more sedentary now.
On the other hand, I think many folks are under a lot more stress in the current economic situation. That might have negative public health implications.
IMO, there is a lot of hocus pocus going on in the "medical error is the 3rd leading cause of death" statistic, and the case they chose to highlight is extremely atypical. The vast majority of health care spending and the vast majority of medical resources are spent on old people in their last 18 months of life. Most deaths due to medical error are very old people undergoing risky and invasive surgeries they demand to have and are unlikely to have a great outcome in, not children. How much of the blame should be placed on the doctor when the patient is 80+ years old, has comorbidities, has been counseled on the risks, and wants to proceed with treatment? Bypass surgery is quite effective on someone younger than 60 who is also put on a diet and exercise regimen, and doesn't have diabetes. Bypass surgery is not effective for someone over 60 who is obese and has diabetes and will not change their diet habits.
Sort of sounds like why some large users will opt to go with a wholesaler like Digital realty, or maybe even Equinix.
Just curious, do you think OpenAI's approach (https://openai.com/blog/solving-rubiks-cube/) will work? They were able to use fingers in a non-trival setting. It has a long way to go before it can be deployed in any useful capacity, but to me it challenges the idea that robot fingers won't ever be viable.
Scummy is a cheap shot that everyone agreed not to do, but one selfish prick decided they deserved it and now our collective trust for each-other is diminished.

If you pirate something like indie games, music, films... that's pretty blatantly scummy.

Otherwise, go ahead and argue that pirating is lazy, unethical, selfish, etc.... but it's definitely not "scummy."
Would you expect a separate app for people who login using Facebook and people who login without?
These are good points. It definitely cuts both ways.

I'm not against GDPR, and I'm glad these issues are getting attention. I just want to make sure we recognize there is a lot of nuance here, and there are real costs and second- and third-order consequences to consider.
You can replace Caffeine with Amphetamine.

Some minor aspects of Dragthing can be replaced with Siracusa’s app Switchglass.

As for Overdrive, does Libby work on the Mac?
Ideally browsers would ask permission for cookies that lasted longer than the current session (where a session lasts until the tab closes). And ideally most webpages wouldn't just keep nagging until people clicked 'always allow'.
Just a thought, make it optional to get rid of the scheduled pickup time. I would be happy with an expected average waiting time, and have them text me when it's ready.

Many of us, myself included, are working from home and have totally flexible schedules. I wouldn't mind just dropping everything and heading over to the store.
I am an iOS developer and most likely the problem is related to configuration and basic analytics, not "siphoning" app data.

Offending code :

if (restrictiveParams[eventName][@"is_deprecated_event"]) {

[deprecatedEventSet addObject:eventName];

}

So, the iOS library does not check for nil, and whatever the server is returning does not have the expected content. Lame.
https://hckrnews.com/ has HN stories in reverse-chronological order, and shows where your last visit's newest story was (if you keep the cookie, of course). Sounds like exactly what you're looking for.
This comment made my day LOL
https://github.com/facebook/facebook-ios-sdk/issues/1374#iss...
Well the reason FB/Foursquare/Google etc add these to 3rd party apps is so they can get data. Example if you visit a website which has a Facebook like button, your browser fetches the js files/which maybe even makes an API call to let FB know your IP (and hence location). All this data is fed to the giant system that feeds you ads.
Adding their SDK to other apps/sites (even if there is no user facing need) is a common strategy used by most big companies to get data. In return the app that puts in the SDK gets $ from the company.
But the flip side is we get back control of our data. Having to treat users data and privacy with respect seems like a completely reasonable thing to ask, and it takes you longer to create something because you're now having to do that then that's good right?

It being inconvenient to you to treat people's data and privacy with respect seems like something it's hard to feel sorry for.
Updates, Case Count, and All the Info You Ever Wanted to Know About Covid-19
Ask HN: What's your personal website's tech stack?
I want to spend some time this weekend re-doing my site (www.garysahota.com) in a platform other than Google Sites. I'm learning web dev now and would love to get your thoughts on what tech I should use!

My requirements:

- Minimal cost (free via Github Pages or the like if possible)

- Semi-frequent blogging

- Static site

- Mobile ready
That would not explain the 40-70% reductions the article cites in actual emergency admissions (strokes etc).

Update: whoever downvoted this, I challenge you to state why.
Questions went stale
What about Android tablets?
No question. The thought process though would be similar. His client isn’t going to take it lightly if he spills the beans—probably wouldn’t get a dose of Pu, but the guy running the place had his brother offed in a foreign airport.
Had a dozen visits to the ER. I was Constantly sent away because nothing serious. Tests generally clean. Told it was mental. Problems persisted.

Kept avoiding ER, I felt bad wasting time. Plus money.

Finally went in and they ran an extra test and found the issue. Probably had seen 30 doctors during all of this.

Some of the doctors were amazed I hadn’t dropped dead yet.
If you're curious to learn more about what's actually being done: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.12616
A solid month of messaging “stay at home” and “hospitals are overwhelmed” and ratings driven fear-mongering been far more effective than policy makers ever intended.
Why do that?

Incorporate a charging loop into the road.

Better still, throw away those heavy and toxic batteries and just collect the car's power directly from the road.
Is this "the free market regulating itself" I hear so much about?
Last company I was at was more or less as you describe.

Now.. at a company in a different industry, there's a 5+ year plan to move 100% to cloud. Nascent efforts are about 18 mos old already, no apps are live yet.

Fortunately, they've been using a container approach for their on-prem stuff for a while, so some stuff can move over pretty easily, a lot of things will get a touch-up or more interesting upgrade along the path to the cloud environment.

Not even talking about de-commissioning the DCs yet, but those will get defunded as things go on.
you are assuming that the Spotify app is not simply handing that data over.
I would not be surprised if there is a financial agreement in place.
> A lot of our servers have 10-40gbit links that we saturate for minutes/hours at a time, which I suspect would be expensive without the kind of topology optimization we do in our datacenters.

I think everyone does something of this sort nowadays, that's why networking is ~free within data centers :)

> but an extra 1ms (say) between datacenters is generally bad for us and measurably reduces performance of some systems

That speaks to me. You will always be just the n-th client unless you own the cross-datacenter data links (i.e. have full autonomy on deciding the priority of the traffic). It's similar to the covid provisioning problems you had mentioned.

> One obvious example is that EC2 has "scheduled maintenance events" where they force you to reboot your box.

Yeah like others pointed out - that's just what "cloud" is, and is generally a good idea. You're supposed to handle a certain % of your machines going dark without a warning without violating any SLO (or even worse, certain % of your machines "pretending" they're up but actually being ridiculously slow for this or that reason; and don't even get me started on CPU/RAM bitflips).

It sounds to me that you run an extremely highly sensitive service, something for which paying for true ownership of the hardware just makes sense to remove those kinds of risks that most services don't care about. At the end of the day "cloud" is a shared resource, and no resource separation efforts will be 100% effective.
I've noticed that- I watch a lot of MST3K and it's always a 50s Sci-fi flick that show rockets landing vertically like SpaceX. They also really like to explain gravity and orbital mechanics at length in every movie because this stuff was all so new and cool!
Facebook engineering generally is super competent. Leet code or not, such slip ups are bound to happen from time to time. True test of competence would be these mistakes don't repeat and that they learn from it, which I'm pretty sure they would.
Same thing happened with Google Maps SDK just a few weeks ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/g6t8fu/google_m...
Working at a medium-sized bank the data center costs were very significant.
Wow heads will roll
It’s part of most apps you use on your phone - Facebook is great for app download campaigns and adding the SDK means end to end visibility on marketing. So “everyone” is using it.

In an abstract sense this is similar to how Facebook (ab)used the like button on 3rd party sites to track anyone using that site. Only it’s much worse because with an app SDK they have access to much more sensitive data.
https://www.reddit.com/u/4chanGPT2Bot is pretty close to actual users on the site.
Same here and I’ve always been a bit skeptical about how well it actually works but I’m pleasantly surprised by the results of this impromptu test!
For those wondering why the Facebook SDK is so widely used in popular mobile apps: Facebook Login is actually in the minority of reasons to add the Facebook SDK to your mobile app. The vast majority of apps will add the Facebook SDK because it contains Facebook App Ads; a library that "completes the circle" in terms of finding out how effectively the ads you ran on Facebook were at getting people to download, install and run your mobile app. So really the Facebook SDK is there to collect data of that advertisement being effective and provides both Facebook and the mobile app developer with knowledge of how their ad spend went.

Is that "spyware"? Some would call it merely wanting to know if your marketing budget was wisely spent - I suppose a lot depends on what data it collects on people.

More info: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-ads
Looks like it's back to normal (ish) now. I'm curious as to what kind of testing they have that this wasn't caught by a test suite though--login integration seems like an incredibly important thing to not break.
Trying to convince medical students to practice in rural/underserved communities by trying to appeal to altruism is clearly not working when many of them may be half a million dollars in debt. It's such a big problem but it seems like there are no easy solutions in sight. Even debt relief programs are clearly not enough. Or perhaps there just aren't enough doctors to begin with.
Forget the bank for a moment, and imagine if you were in direct competition with Amazon and concerned about insider risks.

Now imagine you're aware that Amazon's retail arm is quite happy to launch competing products based on sales data from marketplace sellers, so it's not like they have strict firewalls protecting competitors who pay Amazon for services.

Now imagine Amazon offers you a bunch of security options that sound suspiciously like snake-oil. Like an encrypted storage service where they store the encryption key and transparently decrypt files when you request them.

Now imagine you know people with hypervisor access can do what they like to your VM and leave no evidence whatsoever. And your on-prem experience is that there will definitely be some people with hypervisor access.

Now imagine you've been through various audit and certification processes yourself, and you don't find yourself reassured by the knowledge Amazon has too.

Now imagine if you were a boss at AWS and you found an insider had violated policies and accessed things they shouldn't have. Would it be better for your career to publicise that widely, or reprimand the guy then hush things up?

Now imagine you've been an ambitious cowboy at certain times in your career, and although you've never accessed a competitor's data to give an edge to something you were working on, you can see how it would be a temptation.

I can understand how a person who believed all that would believe putting their business in their competitors hands would be a naive decision.
And you'd think deaths from auto accidents would be way down, but apparently not in Boston: https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/05/04/coronavirus-covid-19-...
Chainmail can have Strategically Placed Holes too.
Honestly just scared GCP might one day cancel my account and I'll lose all my data unless I meet their demands

This hasn't been emphasized enough in these discussions.

Once you're in the cloud, you're dealing with computers as a "utility". Or are you?

When you buy electricity from your local utility, you don't just lose it in the middle of some afternoon for some unknown reason. There's a clear and established procedure, supervised by a Public Utilites Commission. You aren't forced to resort to sending emails and receiving some idiotic canned response from a bot. "Sorry we have reviewed your case and our decision is final. By the way, we don't tell you what you did wrong. Fuck you. Ha. Ha. Ha."

I don't know if Amazon or Azure are better than Google. But I wouldn't trust Google with my worst enemy's data.
Is there a list somewhere of all the apps importing the spyware Facebook SDK?
I noticed a few days back you didn't like it when a user made a new account

I think you must have misunderstood whatever the moderation comment was, there's no prohibition on throwaway or multiple accounts. Just against using them to violate the site guidelines which is a different thing.