skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
anyone else getting hit with rogue bluetooth devices connecting to your own devices/computers? i found this article from a cursory search after observing an attack on my mac (i'm doubtful it's the attack on my machine though).

with apple's concerted push over the past few years, i now begrudgingly leave bluetooth mostly on, which admittedly is a security risk.

but only recently have i had a real, known issue crop up. in the past few weeks, i have had a OnePlus 7T device (or at least claiming to be so) continuously connect to my macbook pro (2015 15", mojave 10.14.6). the first couple times, i just disconnected and assumed it was a mistaken mispairing.

but this morning, i've been monitoring this device as it repeated connects. it can pair with my mac without user interaction and will re-pair if i disconnect it. i'll then force remove it as a known device, but it's still able to pair again. once i force remove it a couple times, it changes MAC addresses and then starts the cycle all over again. these don't show up as bluetooth devices on my iOS devices, but do show up as a bunch of "Misc" entries on my (older) android device. i live in a medium density area so it's very possible this is someone else's device leaking over.

does anyone know what this is and how to counter it? i'm guessing it's a worm of some sort, but have no obvious way to delve deeper.
Ah, yes, that one that did the fundamental research which enabled it right: https://www.nrl.navy.mil/accomplishments/systems/gps
Right, of course dicking around with the codebase for personal amusement is bad and a poor use of time. But I think refactoring doesn't necessarily have to be achieving a clearly defined end goal to be useful and appropriate. Primary because product development itself doesn't have a clearly defined end goal. It's an iterative process where the end goal can change as you discover new information. To follow on your example, if I'm building a two story house and pour a foundation to support that but then the foreman comes along and says "actually we need to build a ten story office building on the same footprint" then you absolutely should start over and pour a new foundation. If you have a well-defined spec to begin with and it doesn't change and you STILL need to do a bunch of refactoring along the way then you probably did something wrong. But in my experience that is almost never the case. Refactoring happens because the requirements change and assumptions you made are no longer valid.
SaaS Onboarding: How to Consistently Delight Users
It's really not. You're asking for a seafood restaurant and are given directions to various seafood restaurants. You are not shown directions to one (a link) and when you show up there, it's another (link was fake).
oh yeah, why's that then?
Given the demographic Signal attracts that seems like an unsafe assumption.
You just described the past few decades of the whole of the DC elites thinking about China. The goose is a Trojan horse as any idiot can see. Sell out the future of democracy to keep apple stock price soaring. Short sighted indeed.
Nah it's used in two related, but kinda confusing ways, it's not just you:

Traditionally, it means rendering your HTML on the server. Exactly what you're saying.

It also refers to a specific technique that's used to implement rendering your HTML on the server by effectively running your client side app server side, then shipping its output. This requires some work to get right, and so it's presented as a feature of client-side libraries/frameworks.
We actually ask to insert a snippet after GA / Segment initialization code.

The algo is a follows: a) check if ga / analytics object is present b) add interceptor c) if the code was fully loaded (not a stup), send "fake" pageview event (which has been already sent), intercept it and send to EN backend only (not the original backend).

Also, we received a pull request that won't require EN code be inserted after GA/Segment. It tries to get window.ga/analytics object. If it doesn't exist, try the same thing in 1 second via setTimeout. We most likely with merge it to master soon
I love Mr. DeVault's work, and think he consistently shows integrity in his work, to say nothing of his incredible productivity and engineering.

That said, in my time following his blog and Mastodon toots, he's prone to making these hot-takes that take down successful projects that do a lot of public good, but don't tick every check. His repeated criticism of Mozilla is a good example of this.

It often feels like cutting off ones nose to spite the face. Without the Mozillas and OpenWhispers of this world, we've no hope for the DeVaults which create incredible feats of engineering that tick all the ideal boxes but lack some of the creature comforts (e.g. sr.ht, wayland, etc..)

I'm optimistic for the future, and the projects started by Moxie and DeVault are a large part of it.
I don't think the author's issue was that youtube results were ranked highly, but that they took up a much larger amount of screen real estate. Look at the screenshot in the article - half the page is one youtube video, then there's a video bar (all youtube, perhaps coincidentally) which is twice as tall as the last, non-youtube result.
> if we're talking about building an SPA you're typically going to be building a worse solution if you can't SSR your client views, which you need a js backend to do.

I have not used React with Rails and maybe I'm misunderstanding your comment, but the react-rails readme includes a section about SSR via ExecJS and integrated with Rails:

https://github.com/reactjs/react-rails#server-side-rendering
Miramax Films, too. Except that was via Disney acquisition in 1993 and not homegrown like Touchstone was.

It's always fun to say that technically Pulp Fiction (released 1994, post-acquisition) is a "Disney" film.
Maybe this could somehow be remedied by a Blockchain technology.
>...Compare ~10 megatonnes of methane leaks worldwide

It isn't clear we fully understand the extent of methane leaks in the US and probably have less info on many other countries.

This is illustrated in the Aliso Canyon leak:

>..The authors believe there are important lessons to be learned from the leak - particularly the need to monitor oil and gas facilities more carefully.
They say that there has been little co-ordinated oversight of the biggest oil and gas leaks in recent years. They point to Aliso Canyon, the BP spill and the Total Elgin rig blowout in the North Sea as examples where luck more than intent ensured the impacts on the environment were monitored.
In the case of Aliso Canyon, the surveying aircraft was working on another project searching for pipeline problems, when the scientists were asked to overfly the leaking well.
"The state's response to Aliso Canyon was teed off by the first measurement we took, at that point no-one had any clue that this was 50,000kg per hour of gas," said Dr Conley.

This report discusses the overall level of uncertainty in this area:

>...However, given limited current evidence, it is likely that leakage at individual natural gas well sites is high enough, when combined with leakage from downstream operations, to make the total leakage exceed the 3.2% threshold beyond which gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some period of time.

https://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6435

Using coal for fuel is almost a crime against humanity considering the health costs, so switching to natural gas is harm reduction. The amount of reduction in GHG production though is more uncertain due to lack of investments in monitoring and reducing methane leakages.
ZeroSSL – Let's Encrypt Alternative
While Scattered Minds does a good job describing the “experience” of ADHD and will likely resonate with people who have the condition, a lot of its conclusions are not scientifically supported.

ADHD is a nuerodevelopmental disorder, it has strong genetic components and the only strongly supported intervention that improves life outcome is stimulant medication. Unfortunately medication doesn’t work or cannot be taken by all of those with the condition.

That said, Scattered may help someone work through other common comorbidities of ADHD (depression, low self esteem, etc). It may shine light on the complex interactions between ADHD, the family and society in a way that’s helpful for understanding ones own experience.
SSR typically refers to server side rendering of a single page app. I.e. render the HTML for a given route of an SPA. For that to work, you need to be able to execute your SPA code on the server which will be JS. You are right that WASM will change all of this, but the ecosystem is not mature yet.
Isomorphic codebases. I would much rather use Rust on the back-end than ReasonML/OCaml.
> But the threat stopped them from dominating the browser market and enabled the first dot-com explosion.

The first dot-com explosion was well under way at that point. Microsoft's domination of the desktop didn't stop any e-commerce companies.
They complain about Javascript and Kubernetes then praise Django and Redis, all in the abstract without any consideration for the totally different problems these tools actually solve. I injected my own personal preferences in-kind but labeled them as preferences instead of slamming other tools as overhyped and without merit.
What does COVID-19 have to do with anything here? They are an Internet company, one would expect they'd be thriving in this scenario.
Do you never find yourself doing things that after you’ve done it, you realise you shouldn’t have?

I find procrastination is sometimes a sign that my subconscious has realised i’d be better delegating or rejecting something rather than doing it BUT my consciousness hasn’t realised that yet.

Resolve is my last choice for things i’m procrastinating. It comes after questions like: maybe i really do want to do this and i just haven’t considered why
I never claimed there aren't unmet needs for Firefox users, or that their needs are invalid. My claim is that there's a good chance the strategy of trying to compete in the browser market is a failing strategy. That is backed up by the evidence. Mozilla has put a ton of resources into improving Firefox, and yet people are still, on-net, leaving.

Executives have a tough decision to make in terms of where and how to place bets. The OP's approach is to just concede that Mozilla will be dead some day and they may as well just slow the decline. If you are the CEO, accepting this and acting in accordance with that would be a dereliction of duty. I am not claiming to know the answer. I worked on a team that tried to place a strong bet to backstop things if Firefox ultimately failed. But I don't think the confidence that it's self-evident that they should just go all-in on Firefox is justified.
People should have feel the burden that taxation places on them.

Payroll withholding already artificially dampens the strain that taxation imposes on everyone that earns a paycheck. Issuing a pre-filled out form is another step backwards.

Paying taxes should be burdensome and uncomfortable.
There definitely is a place for Aldrin Cyclers, not soon, but eventually. It’s not to save on fuel, but to provide safer and healthier accommodations for the trip.

How it will likely work is passengers will take a Starship to orbit. It will be refueled in LEO, then accelerate to Mars injection velocity to match orbit with a passing Cycler. It will dock with the Cycler, passengers will switch to the Cycler for the duration of the journey. The Cycler will be much roomier, have better shielding, and likely rotate to provide Mars level artificial gravity. Passengers will have far better work, entertainment and workout options.

Once the Cycler approaches Mars, passengers will reboard their Starship, and it will Aerobrake to land, while the Cycler continues on in its orbit, which returns to Earth. The Cycler never slows to orbit either Earth or Mars, it just coasts between them but occasionally will need fuel for course optimizations.

The only problem is that Cyclers will take 9 months to go to or return from Mars. They will be like large cruise ships. Starship can make the trip to Mars in as little as 3 months, and some will still do that. They will be the equivalent of the long distance direct flight, trading a less comfortable and less healthy trip for a big time savings.
Bye bye, accessibility!
Some time back, I read all I could on procrastination, and watched dozens of videos on it, and by far the best thing I found on it was this video by Tim Pychyl: [1]

It focuses particularly on procrastination in graduate school, but is widely applicable elsewhere.

One of the key insights that Pychyl, a psychologist who studies procrastination, had is that procrastination is not (as is commonly believed) a time management problem but a problem with managing negative emotions.

He has lots of really useful, practical tips for overcoming procrastination in the video, which I highly recommend.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA
My friend, although I feel the same as you about the 2G connectivity issue, I should remind you that just 3 years before 370 abrogation, schools in Kashmir were shut for 8 Months [1] after the killing of Terrorist by security forces. This is the J&K I have grown up in. "Stopping terrorism" sounds like just another narrative, but not to those who have lived with its consequences.

[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/kashmir-schools-reopen...
This post has been on Hacker News several times. For instance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973.

When it was first published, it included an emphatic recommendation to use Matrix, and, later, Tox --- in fact, the post even included a changelog at the bottom recording the inclusion of Tox. After it was pointed out to the author that Matrix didn't even do E2E by default, the recommendations (and the changelog) were ghost-edited out of the post, but you can still see them on Archive.org.

I don't understand why people take this post seriously.
I also thought that. Great title, and then a lacking blog post.
It's using this: https://yew.rs/docs/concepts/html and no, just like JSX, it's not HTML strings. It's building HTML-like AST in macro.

One great thing about JSX (and Yew) is that it's way more secure way to build an HTML, because you don't need to worry about escaping behaviors as much. (Sometimes you still need, like injecting inline CSS etc. but not that often)
IMO the better way to design a product like this to avoid abuse would be to simply force them to sign in using each platform they want to link to. At that point all you're building is a way for people to say, "These 5 social media accounts are all me".

You could allow them to select one of their accounts to source information and a photo for their combined profile. At that point you're not storing anything besides links to social media profile pages.

In effect you get to piggy-back on those sites' abuse mitigation strategies (though of course you're stuck with the lowest common denominator). Your biggest decision at that point is which social media platforms to allow onto your service.
As a lot of less-than/greater-than tokens
That's the current legal definition. But since we're talking about changing the law, our concepts aren't constrained by current law. I'm asking about the concept, not the law.
This is useful information. So, not librem.one, not privacytools.io, then... Maybe that leaves a homeserver of my own? I guess I am glad no one has picked up my current address. But it doesn't bode well for adoption.

I had thought that parking on a homeserver was not trusting them.
If you want, you can mail Visa a check for 3% of your spending at the end of each month. A small price to pay for your freedom.
I used to live in VA in the early 90’s. Many comms sites on the mountain between 50 and 7, near Mount Weather. Funny, I used to buy clothes at the Bells near the base of that tower at Tyson’s.

I have an old AT&T Long Lines microwave transceiver. Similar blast hardened sites used to dot the country, then many towers were torn down.

https://www.missilebases.com/communication-bunker
Not sure I buy this argument... here are some random thoughts on why:

1) Someone has to be first. Let's say that there is no filter, and every species that doesn't destroy itself or get destroyed will eventually become technologically advanced to travel around meaningfully in space. There is a certain amount of time it will take for this to happen. Supposedly the universe is ~14B years old, and Earth is ~5B years old. It takes a certain amount of time for abiogenesis, a certain amount of time for life to evolve, and a species to emerge "victorious" long enough to start conquering the universe before the next extinction event. So we could be the "first", or the top 20% anyway, and it'll still take us a while for those top 20% to get anywhere where they can start detecting/traveling anywhere.

2) What is the maximum distance any extraterrestrial life could observe our technology/planet currently?
Space is huge, like uncomprehendingly huge... even if we could go anywhere ourselves right now, would we go visit every single planet everywhere without a reason to? And how long would that take? Maybe there hasn't been enough time for a civilization to a) detect us from 100s of light years away and b) travel to us. Maybe detection of life from far away is impossible past a certain point, but traveling there isn't (since it just takes time).

So I guess my thought is, yeah, we might not find life in our solar system, but we might. But even if we do, I don't necessarily think we'll get filtered out either.
There's several reasons a bus is seen as worse than them being poached:

* Early startup employees have golden handcuffs regarding switching jobs. Sure, Facebook is offering them $500k but they'd be on the hook for $200k in taxes if they exercise their options and they leave a bunch more un-vested options on the table.

* You can mitigate them leaving by having a better work environment, equity and so on. Not much you can do about a bus.

* You can pay them to stay on for another month or to consult after the fact. No amount of money get's you an hour long phone call to the afterlife.

edit: Also, the article underestimates the effort needed to get a FAANG job. They don't just call you up and offer you a job. They offer you the chance to take a grueling set of white board interviews that require months of studying to pass.
I'm so proud that a family member managed to get all of my extended family on Signal. My grandparents are even on Signal.

I wouldn't trust such an app for anything actually secret due to the mentioned issues (and phone number req), but I think it's great that we're using high grade encryption to talk about what we had for dinner.

Encrypted and private should be the default no matter what!
I can see the civilization ending argument, although it seems like something resembling modern civilization could be rebuilt, maybe with less access to energy, but with less people you also need less energy, so I'm not sure how big of a problem that will be. Maybe without global industries there won't be the materials science necessary for space exploration.

I have a harder time believing independent actors can extinguish the human race. Biowarfare/terrorism is unlikely to do so for a variety of reasons, and nuclear warfare only has the potential to do in superpower level conflict, and even then I don't think it's certain.
For anyone looking for a Linux laptop without an Nvidia card, Lenovo allows you to customize P1 Gen2s so that they only have an Intel GPU. For day-to-day dev work it's more than enough even on a 4k screen.

I just bought one and it's a really good Linux laptop, by which I mean most of the hardware works at an acceptable level out of the box. (That's no small feat for a current-gen laptop of any brand.)

Complaints:

- The OLED screen option has some kind of visible honeycomb layer on top. Forums threads suggest this is the touch layer, but it's really distracting and shockingly low-quality. My unit also came with a pink tint across half the screen which is a common OLED defect. I swapped it for the IPS screen which is excellent and doesn't have touch, a bonus in my book.

- Current Intel GPU drivers on Ubuntu 20.04 suffer from visible lag and tearing when using the built-in 4k screen. I believe Canonical has fixed this for 20.10 but it doesn't seem to be backported yet.

- The GPU drivers suffer from a bug that disables the HDMI port if a cable is present at boot. There are bugs filed in the Intel tracker but this is an older GPU so I don't know if they'll ever get attention.

- The trackpad is coated in some kind of matte coating that makes your finger stick and skip when using it. Very uncomfortable. They claim it's glass but I've used really nice glass trackpads (in 5-year-old machines even) and this ain't it.

Besides these nits, two of which are fixable driver issues, it's a great machine and I'd recommend it with the IPS/Intel-only options.
I somehow hoped that Baker got replaced.
> I don't work at Google but I imagine just working on making it a dedicated goal to have a continuously faulty region would reduce the burden of everyone involved

This sounds nice in theory but I think you are underestimating the vast complexity of large cloud platform internal systems. The amount of work to make this happen reliablely would be immense. You would probably need a few people from each cloud SRE team with some SWE partners working for a year or longer to get this up and running. Then after that we would need to work out all of the bugs caused by these contrived failure modes and build automation to repair damage.

It's just too much work to justify when there is so much work to be done for regular prod already
FAANG companies can certainly offer more money, but there are lots of things other companies can offer too (besides Ruby on Rails apparently).

- ownership of the product and process

- less red tape and politics

- good work life balance

- location other than Silicon Valley

- boss who pays attention to engineer needs and wants

Money is a huge factor but it isn't the only one!
None of that eas necessary for WebAssembly to be developed.

Theres no churn in WebAssembly tooling and frameworks yet, because WebAssembly has yet to make a big impact on many front end devs. We will see the jQuery-but-WebAssembly for making binding easier, Bootstrap-but-WebAssembly for making UIs and React-but-WebAssembly for managing components (not actually those libraries, but equivalents) come along and they will get adopted to make applications that serve large bundles of WebAssembly code that could be done better in simpler tools. That is inevitable.

WebAssembly will be used badly. Everything is, especially in web dev. Hopefully it will also be used well though.
New Upvote Logo?
Is it just me or does the "upvote" logo resemble a white version of the poop emoji at a glance?
>Microsoft wasn't really interested in the web, and let IE stagnate for years.

Sounds like Mozilla and Firefox.

But let's step back. If your contention is that Firefox cannot raise its adoption and/or cannot compete with Chrome - then Mozilla is in big trouble. In that case, they should free up their dev resources by dumping Firefox and either getting out of the browser game, or adopting CEF like everybody else and build their services (like 'Pocket' and 'VPN') on top of that.
SREs Should Be Responsible for Development Environments
Well I just love my friendly neighborhood gas and electric utilities...
NOT.
If nothing else, we would see stars fade away as civilizations built Dyson swarms around them to collect more and more of their energy. That wouldn’t even require interstellar travel. Interstellar travel would in turn enable exponential growth across star systems, which would show up.