skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Good courses/teachers change everything.

I thought I hated literature and philosophy until I took a philosophy 101 course that I procrastinated until my final semester at UT.

It was basically two professors (one was Dutch that was co-teaching the course until he would transition to be a stand-alone professor) and a class of 12 students at a university where I was used to intro courses in 200-student lecture halls.

The enthusiasm of the professors was contagious. And they turned text that would have been boring / misunderstood if read on my own into lines that were couched in all sorts of humor and greater commentary about the world, and I was hooked. They taught me how to enjoy literature that otherwise would have seemed totally dull and dry and it was a real gift.

Over a decade later, I was at a bar and somehow Plato's Gorgias came up with a stranger and we both half-jokingly agreed that Callicles was right about the world. And I thought about how thankful I was for that philosophy class once again.
The market seems like any system really. It can be stable, but this is only common with a diverse array of variables. Otherwise it gets into positive or negative feedback loops. Human behavior acts as a dampener or an amplifier.
Years ago, I visited the zoo in Central Park in NYC and watched a polar bear, as it swam around and around in a pool. It swam in a triangle, touching the three same points on the wall of the enclosure as it made each circuit.

Last month I walked around Greenwich Park in London 125 times, each time following exactly the same route. I thought about that polar bear a lot as I walked.
Luckily, one can never lead to the other.
Vice (NYT reporter involved in the overall ordeal) got a person they doxxed to be kicked off Patreon aka their livelihood for some period of time before after she (the person) retaliated against Vice — SexyCyborg. Not sure if there’s a space or not.
Scared of upcoming school holidays. My days would be far worse if I didn’t have 50 curious little voices asking about .split() etc every day.
Yeah, my comment was only in reference to this subthread.
Living in Nothern Europe, and working in IT, life is good. Things are opening up, only large gatherings like festivals are still cancelled. None of that non-sense of being required to where a mask just to go shopping.

Summers is here, vacation time is just around the corner.

Some of us had is pretty easy, depending on your view. I worked from home for around four weeks. My wife has been going to work through the whole corona thing, closing pharmacies was never an option really. My daughter have been in daycare almost every day, allowing me to work. So everything has been pretty normal, just with less traffic.
There was (almost) never a problem running out of river water. Freshwater (i.e. river) treatment is peanuts compared to desalination. It's pumps and pipes that cost most, not filters.
Part of high water costs are certain cities charge increasing per-gallon rates the more you use, to discourage lawn irrigation. This isn't just a drought measure. Dallas's predatory water-pricing scheme is permanent, even when our reservoirs are so overfull that we're just dumping excess water into the rivers, which is a surprising amount of the time. It's been years since there's been any legitimate need for pricing to discourage water use.
>And what, exactly, does all of this have to do with ARM vs x86?

The transition from x86 to ARM gives them the opportunity to impose these restrictions. Back in the day, companies wouldn't even dream of trying to pull something as radical as this, but now that we've had a decade of smartphones proving how you can get away with not allowing customers to install their own operating system on their phone, the leverage is there. It's not ARM itself that worries me, it's the transition from x86 to anything (POWER9, ARM, etc.)
I'm at rock bottom.

I got laid off unexpectedly, right at the beginning of the coronavirus. Severance package was terrible and I'm pretty much broke. Plus, the FMV of my options cratered, so the equity I worked hard for is already underwater.

Hit the interview trail hard and have received nothing but rejections. Despite getting referrals from current engineers, I don't even make it past the tech recruiter phone screen stage. And of course, no one is willing to offer feedback so I'm left with my worst thoughts of self-doubt and imposter syndrome.

Sitting here with no money, nothing to do, watching all my friends take advantage of the remote work by going to cool places. I'm going insane and all signs point to the continuation of this shitty status quo for the next year at least. I don't know what I'm going to do.
It is a matter of definition and she is probably wrong if academic definitions apply, but yes, that is one prominent mob. There are others of course. If you think that these dissections were meant to free yourself from expectations, it is kind of ironic to have a twitter mob coming after you for wrong opinions. Completely defeats the purpose and then some.
"Alas," said the mouse, "the world gets smaller every day. At first it was so wide that I ran along and was happy to see walls appearing to my right and left, but these high walls converged so quickly that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the trap into which I must run."

"But you’ve only got to run the other way," said the cat, and ate it.

Das ist komisch.
We do that all the time with drug laws.
I think you need to distinguish between people complaining about CERN in general and people complaining about funding a new large hadron collider. The use of CERN and other scientific communities is well-known and, I think, widely acknowledged.
Lawmakers unite to reboot computer chip production in the US
Wirecard's former CEO Markus Braun arrested after $2B scandal explodes
OT/meta: It's really nice to see submissions linking directly to Sci-Hub :)

(It isn't yet that popular: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=sci-hub.tw)
If you have not read Scott Alexander blog posts before I only can say you are missing out of an internet gem. Some personal favorites:
- Meditations On Moloch
- I can tolerate anything except the outgroup
Co-opting universities to teach using Esri tools is a big part of Esri's marketing. They provide those tools to schools below cost, encourage (bribe) profs to incorporate their toolset heavily into their curriculum with free seminars in nice places, and it's often a revolving door between academia and Esri research posts.

Reminds me of the opioid industry!
I am confused about how the New York Times and journalism in general treats the pseudonymous and anonymous. I am continually annoyed at how often articles use unnamed "sources close to" a matter. It fosters a culture of government unaccountability. But the post says that it is "New York Times policy to include real names". Are there some subtle rules involved here that are not obvious to me?
Not too bad - my commute was 1h15m each way so I've got lots of extra time, I'm fortunate to have a dedicated office at home and a garden to relax in - I know I'm somewhat of an outlier though, and appreciate just how lucky I am.

I'm also moving jobs and it's going to be interesting ramping up remotely.
Ask HN: What desk chair do you use?
For me rather the film Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), we are going through the McCarty years again.
Weirdly I found I really like them.

The thread format forces people to break their thoughts up into chunks - a little like bullet points on slides but 280 characters makes the chunks much more information-full than just a bullet.

I can like or retweet specific interesting points as I read them.

Individual tweets in a thread can include images or link previews or link to other tweets.

What platform are you reading them on? I find them fine to read in the Twitter iPhone app - almost indistinguishable from a article elsewhere. Is that not the case outside of the app?
Hey friend.

Long time lurker around here, created an account to reply here.

I don't know. It's hard man. I know there are people in worse situations than me but it's hard anyway.

Working from home since March.

I spend all my day alone at home (with my cats). My GF arrives late and leaves early. She has to go to work everyday.

I feel unmotivated. I'm not socializing, I'm getting fat, I'm slacking on my work.

The worse part is that the effort that I and others have been making are worthless because a couple people can and will destroy it.

I'm living in Portugal and "we" thought everything was going back to normal. Of course not. The cases are ramping back up again. Today we have new and harder rules to follow once again.

I know that I won't be back into the office this year.

My summer festivals are cancelled.

I couldn't celebrate my birthday with my friend and family.

I miss hugs from my mother.

This shit sucks.
In the UK we have a rent/mortgage holiday to protect us from these unprecedented times. I'd probably blame everything other than myself if I went from being a professional living in Manhattan to unemployed and unable to pay rent. Sometimes the carpet can just be pulled out from under us and it sucks.
I think Facebook is ultimately right, just too early, betting on VR being the next thing.

Spatial presence is incredibly important: you can face towards the person you're speaking to. You can whisper to the person next to you. Crowded rooms naturally organize in cliques/groups. In a video chat all of this is broken or awkward.

VR today is way too bulky and annoying. It's in the "luggable microcomputers" stage before laptops and phones, but it shows a glimpse of the future.

For example, standalone Oculus is less of a hassle than thethered headsets. Camera-based hand tracking demos show how people can freely gesticulate in the VR space. Imagine that extended to full-body tracking and in-headset sensors that capture facial expressions and "deepfake" you in VR.
Isn't everyone insolvent, in 2020?
Hang in there. Sometimes basically just a law of large numbers, sucks for some.
If I read this correctly, this is absolutely bonkers. Basically the "System libraries" do not exist as files anymore? So they just deprecated normal dynamic linking for a subset of libraries? But as I know the Mac folks around there, they are going to swallow it. Because, uhm,..., It's Apple.
The chapter The Second-System Effect form The Mythical Man-Month book (Brooks, Jr. Frederick P.) talks about this problem:

“An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint.

As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm, confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system.

This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable.”

The overall advice is to practice self-discipline:

“How does the architect avoid the second-system effect? Well, obviously he can't skip his second system. But he can be conscious of the peculiar hazards of that system, and exert extra self-discipline to avoid functional ornamentation and to avoid extrapolation of functions that are obviated by changes in assumptions and purposes.

A discipline that will open an architect's eyes is to assign each little function a value: capability x is worth not more than m bytes of memory and n microseconds per invocation. These values will guide initial decisions and serve during implementation as a guide and warning to all.

How does the project manager avoid the second-system effect? By insisting on a senior architect who has at least two systems under his belt. Too, by staying aware of the special temptations, he can ask the right questions to ensure that the philosophical concepts and objectives are fully reflected in the detailed design.”
> I rely entirely on external structure and physical separation of spaces to keep myself sane.

I think this will resonate with a significant subset of the HN crowd. I really thrive on externally-enforced structure (didn't take long to discover I made a terrible entrepreneur, but found a good niche as a startup employee). I've set my life up around having different events and places I need to be: classes at my gym, took up some in-person Spanish lessons, etc. When all those avenues shut down, I found it incredibly difficult to motivate myself to do anything. My physical health has deteriorated as I get much less exercise now, and that has sort of spiraled with my mental well-being. It's been rough.
You make a good point, and this is one of the reasons why I really like the Phoenix web framework (of the Elixir ecosystem). It firmly guides you towards building applications where Phoenix is only a single interface to your underlying Elixir application, and the web layer, by design, doesn't contain business logic, but rather just gives you a web-friendly way to talk to the application itself. The community has come up with the mantra of "Phoenix is not your application" to drive this point home.

This approach and separation of concerns also means that building e.g. REST or GraphQL APIs on top of your application is simple, as your web framework has no say in how the data is actually structured or queried.
And what do you think do houses cost in Germany, compared to "bigger cities" in America?

I know plenty of people in that income range myself who do own houses (or apartments in some cases) and wouldn't think of forgoing their summer vacation in Menorca or Ibiza.

"The other commenters" is just one, and he's factually wrong. No matter how much HNers love to pile on, 50k Euros is a respectable income in most parts of Germany.

The idea that all software engineering is in Stuttgart, Munich or Berlin is laughable. We have lots and lots of family companies of the so-called "Mittelstand" strewn across the province (but West Germany primarily). Some of those are hidden champions. In towns and regions few Americans will ever have heard of.
Aha, good observation. I actually disabled snap-to-grid a couple of weeks ago (was making the mouse drag sluggish for some reason). Probably a bug on my end, need to investigate further and fix.
Matrix Matrix Revolution!
I don't think The Spectator claims to be neutral? Everyone knows that it's a right-leaning magazine and it doesn't pretend otherwise. I'd describe myself as centre-left but I agree with GP that The Spectator is one of the better sources for a right-of-centre perspective. (I also agree with GP that there are exceptions... God I can't stand James Delingpole.)

Just because a source has an editorial slant doesn't mean it doesn't provide any insight. The problem is when journalists push their opinions on you while pretending to be impartial.
Can the cult of Bang and Olufsen last? (2011)
Or US-aligned coups. Passive voice and aggressively dodging the word "coup" can go a long way.

All awfully convenient for the State Department, and equally convenient for the paper's relationships with their contacts within it and other parts of the US government.
The original post made an argument of the following form:

>People who could offer smart insights consor themselves for fear of being attacked for their opinions.

The user you're replying to asked what opinions is Scott risking to be attacked about. You're providing arguments about Scott having offered smart insights, which was not the part of the argument debated. The original post shifted the discussion from Scott's worries--which were chiefly related to the dangers of working in psychology--towards the more general discussion about censorship as it is talked about in the works referenced above.

In other words, most of this thread is repurposing Scott's post to give a platform for their current political concerns.
"Extremist" and "dangerous" according to whom?
You might, as I do, prefer written sources, but I must recommend watching (even just the first part of) this BBC documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDADy9b2IBM
> this is absolutely bonkers

Why do you care if the files are on the disk or not though? What are you using that for?
That's a fair point: Vancouver suffers from many of the same problems as other west coast cities around not enough housing being built.

I was only considering my lifestyle in Toronto, where we have similar problems but not to the same scale. Toronto is less afraid to build up! Last I heard there were something like 50+ buildings over 50 stories under construction in the city.
I live about 3 blocks from a friend of mine, I'm in township, he's in the city. His water bill is $120/month, mine is $90 every quarter. We get the same water/sewer from the same place.
BJJ armbar techniques all that you need to know
They probably think along the same lines that justify paying for heat in, for example, New England, where water is plentiful.
Living on a continent sized island does have it's downsides...
Why don't you ask Bernadette? https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0946288/
> I hope that the journalist gets revealed

The name of the journalist in question is no secret; spend 5 minutes browsing Twitter or the SSC subreddit and you'll figure it out.
Asp.net Core: Saturating 10GbE at 7M request/s
Yeah whenever people on here allude to 'what you can't say' it usually boils down to the same few very specific ideas, none of which are particularly secret, original or new. Hell, if you're a tenured professor, billionaire or anyone in a position of power whining about 'what you can't say' I find it hard to take you seriously.
Ask HN: Looking for new opportunities? Want to help?
I've been active on Twitter for around 1 month and already feeling the power of this social network. One simple tweet can be seen by thousands or even millions of people if shared by high-profile users.

Seeing millions losing jobs and clients during this pandemic I thought: why not help those people to find new revenue streams? How?

Tweeting profiles of people looking for job/clients

Combining the power of Twitter, this lovely community and my mission to help people, I'd suggest we use our Twitter knowledge and influence to help.

I plan to do it in 2 steps

1. Please, drop your Twitter handle below telling if you either a) want to share a profile or b) need help. If you need help, tell a short story that the sharer can include in the tweet to be shared

2. Match those in need with people that are happy to share.

What do you think?
Governing mechanisms research in blockchain: Preferences and on-chain voting
You're saying we should just trust the journalists to be truthful, no need for us to be able to check the journalists work.
It's not easy at all. Even in a democratic country with highly functional legal system like the US due process is not available to many (e.g. George Floyd).

Also my idea of shame doesn't include death threats let alone more extreme things like swatting.
I'm talking about Slovak SME, Denník N, Aktuality, HN, Markíza and Czech DVTV and Reflex.
Disclaimer: I have never worked in large teams but this problem arises everywhere with the caveat that in smaller teams and solo development the coordination requirements are much simpler.

That said, I think there are two steps in designing abstractions:

The first is to split up and isolate both code and data into small, simple pieces. These can easily be non-DRY (structurally) and often are. You'll have cases where you often (always?) pass things or do things in sequence in the same way.

The second is to merge the pieces with parametrization (or DI in OO), defining common interfaces, polymorphism etc.

The first part is very often beneficial and makes code more malleable, which makes future features/changes less cumbersome.

The second part however is the dangerous but also powerful one. It can lead to code that is much more declarative, high-level and adding new features becomes faster. But the danger is that a project isn't at the stage where these abstractions are understood well enough, so you end up trying to break them up too often.

I try to default to writing dumb, simple small pieces and deferring abstractions until they become provably apparent. Fighting the urge to refactor into DRY code.

Now there is also another issue with writing "future proof" code, which doesn't involve abstractions but rather defensive programming, which is an entirely different issue.
https://twitter.com/RiotChat/status/1275364340573634560
> I wish there were a clear bad guy here,

Clearly this is the bad guy:

"one of our own VC's caller her a "little girl" while doing a fireside chat with her at PlanGrid"

Bonus bad guys from the comments:

"...potential investors take female founders out for dinner, ostensibly to talk over the potential investment but in reality as an attempt to sleep with them. ..."
I have to wonder why no one here seems to be ignoring the most obvious interpretation: Scott Alexander's identity is probably newsworthy. We might very well know him or her from other associations and the authorship of this blog would be notable and interesting.

I mean, obviously it's not the case that newspaper policy demands identifying sources. The Times writes about anonymous people all the time. If this article about a pseudonymous blog was going to stand alone, they'd run it.

My strong suspicion is that they have a juicier story about why Someone Important is writing a pseudonymous blog.

And that changes things, IMHO.
Thank you for all you have written, Scott. Hopefully this will be resolved quickly. I wish you the best.
>They exist, but the woke crowd is purging them hard now.

Yes, thereby creating tomorrow's woke crowd. Tomorrow's woke crowd will ultimately purge today's woke crowd. So we may as well just politely state our opinions because self-censoring and trying to be nice won't save us.
I've posted a bunch on inspiration during lockdown. For example, I did an episode on Nelson Mandela. Here's the audio: https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-environment/episo....

Here's the text:

----

Many of us are struggling living in lockdown.

Nelson Mandela has inspired me in many ways. Going beyond subsisting in captivity, he emerged from 27 years imprisoned on Robben Island---South Africa's Alcatraz---to become President.

Today's episode shares part of what I believe helped him, which I believe can help us. First, he endured 27 years. We're only a few months in, and not in a small cement prison cell with a bucket for a toilet.

More, he practiced daily habits. We can too. I describe his in this episode, I hope in ways we can learn from.

Here are a couple quotes I read in the recording, both from his autobiography:

“I attempted to follow my old boxing routine of doing roadwork and muscle-building from Monday through Thursday and then resting for the next three days. On Monday through Thursday, I would do stationary running in my cell in the morning for up to forty-five minutes. I would also perform one hundred fingertip push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, fifty deep knee-bends, and various other calisthenics.”

“I awoke on the day of my release after only a few hours’ sleep at 4:30am. February 11 was a cloudless, end-of-summer Cape Town day. I did a shortened version of my usual exercise regimen, washed, and ate breakfast. … As so often happens in life, the momentousness of an occasion is lost in the welter of a thousand details.”

For more on Mandela and daily habits, see my post, Nelson Mandela on sidchas https://joshuaspodek.com/nelson-mandela-on-sidchas.

----

Beside that post, I've found acting in service of others gives more meaning, purpose, and inspiration beyond any self-care.

Whatever your situation, others can use your help. For me, my podcast costs almost nothing, but drives me to help on the environment. There is no shortage of people who could use help, in person or virtually.

"To serve is to live." -- Frances Hesselbein