skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Google Sheets API is a nightmare compared to Airtable API.

There are external services like Sheetsu or Sheety to make Google Sheets API usable.
> There is no meaningful benefit to be had.

It allows C to support unusual architectures at full speed. If your architecture uses 36-bit arithmetic, [0] C supports that just fine: the compiler can treat int and unsigned int as 36-bit types, as the C standard permits this, and there will be no awkward conversions to and from 32-bit.

The compiler might also offer uint32_t (this is optional [1]) but it would presumably have inferior performance.

> It would have been much simpler for the programmer to just pick a datatype based on what is appropriate for the application.

It would be bad for performance to implement, say, 11 bit arithmetic on a standard architecture. It would probably only be worth it if it saved a lot of memory. You can implement this manually in C, doing bit-packing with an array, but the language itself can't easily support it, as C requires variables to be addressable.

The Ada programming language does something somewhat similar, where the programmer rarely uses a raw type like int or int32_t, instead they define a new integer type with the desired range. (The range doesn't have to start at zero, or at the equivalent of INT_MIN. It could be -1 to 13, or 9 to 1,000,000.) As well as enabling the compiler to implement out-of-bounds checks, it also permits the compiler to choose whatever representation it deems to be best. The compiler is permitted to do space-efficient bit-packing if it wants to. (As I understand it, Ada 'access types' differ from C pointers in that they aren't always native-code address values, which enables the Ada compiler to do this kind of thing.) [2]

I suspect the Ada approach is probably superior to either the C approach (int means whatever the architecture would like it to mean, roughly speaking) or the Java approach (int means a 32-bit integer that uses 2's complement, regardless of the hardware and regardless of whether you need the full range). A pity it hasn't caught on.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36-bit_computing

[1] https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/types/integer

[2] https://docs.adacore.com/gnat_rm-docs/html/gnat_rm/gnat_rm/r...
> On a note aside: I wish HTML had a <time>-tag, so we could also settle the timezone problem in publications like rocket launches or starting times of keynotes once and for all, where the publisher would use something like <time tz="Europe/Berlin">2020-09-15 10:26:48</time> and the browser would show it to the reader in the reader's local timezone.

While the browser won't convert it automatically, this is what the HTML <time>⁰ tag is for. The publisher can use <time datetime="2020-09-15T10:26:48+2">2020-09-15 10:26:48</time> and include a script which will read the datetime attribute and convert it to the browser's local time zone.

⁰ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ti...
"I'm going to get myself a large bonus by clearing many bugs".

The Dilbert strip has the additional suggestion that the programmer could introduce bugs in order to clear them, in an example of the Cobra Effect.
Define value. Now that's a rabbit hole. Marxist definition? Ricardian?
Show HN: pongo2 v4: Django-like templating engine for Go released
I found this comic very good and useful, but I'm a bit disappointed by two things:

1) the fact that it doesn't spend much time explaining what happens after the client generates a pre-master key. Diffie Hellman seems to be pretty standard, but it's nowhere to be seen here. Also, how do the client and server agree on a shared key if the secure communication only goes one way at this point? How can the server securely answer to the client, if the client hasn't sent an actual public key? In other words, how could they do the DH step (not explained itself in the comic) if a MITM attack is possible at this stage? I always assumed the client generates a temporary public key for itself and sends it (encrypted with the server's public key) to the server, but I'm not sure at all.

2) I was glad to see a quiz, but sadly most questions are too easy, with 1 serious answer and 3 completely ludicrous ones. Doesn't really challenge your knowledge.

Excellent work however.
To be fair, pretty much every country aside from Germany is whitewashing their past with the help of the media. Some call it propaganda, some call it patriotism, some call it "promoting of state policy" but it's all the same thing.
I have dlna on the rock64 (volumio), the problem is on android side - there are no tools to capture the sound and stream it to dlna.

Custom apps like BubbleUPnP are not satisfying, I want to stream any app sound - chrome, youtube, any
> if you ask

And pay ;)

Getting a static IP on an internet plan here in Australia will typically cost around $5 a month, and not all ISPs offer it on residential plans.
Neither applications are designed to run while the GPU maxed out with graphics rendering, are they?
Its absurd to question Stalinist trial label.

It is a show trial with so many glaring issues that UK citizens should be rioting. It makes UK look like a servile dog of US. They are staining whole nation law system for petty revenge of handful US politicians that will make it as their success. Disgusting.
You are conflating very different issues. So yes, it does come across as a rant.

My perspective, as someone who worked for JPMorgan in technology for 8 years, and for several other banks, is that JPMorgan is way above most other banks in the quality of their systems and their dev teams.

Likewise the top management. Jamie Dimon is very impressive. You don't get to stay CEO of a bank with 250,000 employees for more than 20 years without being seriously good at it, very consistently.
>starting from the hardware.

There's absolutely no need to start from the hardware. In fact, both hardware and software can and should be done in parallel.
I wonder the same thing. My girlfriend has to have music on in the background all the time. It drives me a bit crazy. I often just want silence.
It looks like it could be good, but doesn’t slide on Safari on my iPhone.
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> Is this really what a "done" software is?

I think it is. It basically solved all the problems that were there at its inception and the world moved on.
It continues to offer a solution for the original problems (which legacy software most likely still has) and can still be used with minimal engineering effort.

I would call that done.
I think knowing that this comes from people with a long and well established track record of intentional deception, propagating misinformation and exaggeration is useful background knowledge.

As for knowledge of biochemistry, there is no new research here. None. It's pasted together from other sources. For example the discussion of the proteins ZXC21 and ZC45 comes form this article [1], which also presents evidence that the virus can infect and therefore could have passed to humans from mammals other than bats. In other words it's closest viral relatives might be in a mammal species other than bats, so in focusing on bats for the virus's nearest relative we might be looking in the wrong place. That blows a hole in this paper's thesis that the virus not being almost identical to the bat viruses means it must be engineered, so of course it isn't mentioned in the article at all. Nice cherries they're picking!

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6135831/
I'm generally a fan, but that's quite possibly the least funny XKCD ever.
I would like to have the ability to use a GPU buffer for HDMI audio output. It would enable a couple of interesting applications.
HTML5 does have a <time>-tag, but browsers don't render times in local time, you need JavaScript for that.
Had the same problem, 4x 1Gps ports and one 2.5Gbs, so i had to buy another switch and now i have Fiber to Workstation, but it's nice the cable is much easier to hide, downside sharp edges.
On second thought, what I said about YouTube is idiotic. But I think rest is true.
So your projects have no dependencies? You just write everything from scratch? Your code is perfect the first time you write it? I'm utterly confused by this comment.
Is Facebook really still trying to build a business? I'd say they're well beyond the startup phase.
You're welcome, although somebody else apparently disagreed violently enough to downvote.
well if you want vast profits that come from taking on that role.. why not be expected to do it responsibly.. it's not like we couldn't and didn't get along just fine without facebook...
According to the Wikipedia link, Latimer (together with a J. Nichols) got another patent related to lightbulbs a year before the one that's described in the article:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US247097
That's a stretch. Steve Bannon has earned his reputation quite well outside his (rather brief) association with Trump.
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As if journals weren't the most pretentious and most political thing ever.
Same here :D
nods in the general direction of Kaitai Struct
Blockchain and Trust (2019)
on Golang REPL there is no error message displayed which makes it even more puzzling, thanks for hint with logging in!
Actually, after going through the paper, most concerns seem to me like cherry picked data, except for the fact that Shi theoretically found the RaTG13 (the "origin" of SARS-CoV-2) in 2013.

Even though it displayed potential for human infection and literally her job was to analyse bat coronaviruses with human infection potential, the virus was shelved for 7 years, and there's NO scientific literature, produced by her or otherwise, about this virus.

Not until the pandemic arrived, at least, then she's the first to say "nCoV-2019 actually comes from the bat coronavirus RaTG13, look how similar they are, it's zoonotic, teeheehee".
> They are also a pretty good way to leverage GPUs.

Compositors do not do much GPU leverage outside of drawing a bunch of textured quads for the final image, but those textures are assembled on the CPU (some toolkits have GPU backends but even that goes back and forth the CPU because not everything is done though the GPU).

It would need a big rewrite of the GUI stack to actually take advantage of GPUs with whatever service/server handles it to have a full scene tree with all the contents of the desktop resident (and whenever possible, manipulated) in GPU memory.

As things are nowadays, however, at best you get a mix of the two (and that itself isn't without its drawbacks too).
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The author Li Meng Yan is also a regular on Bannon's 4-hour daily YouTube-show "War Room Pandemic" which is absolutely crazy.

However they have a lot of money from some curious Chinese groups and you shouldn't underestimate how much influence they have over the current US administration.
I plan for “done.” I remember taking a project management course, where the instructor kept using the phrase “What does ‘done’ look like?” I also worked with a manager that declared "The #1 feature of a project is 'Ship.'”

Every project that I do; even experimental and “unending” projects are done as “ship-quality.” This is because I often revisit previous work, looking for snippets. If they are already at “ship” quality, then that’s one less problem.

I’m also a grizzled veteran of “the prototype becomes the product.” That’s something that many of us have experienced. It sucks, but it’s real. If the prototype is already “ship-quality,” then that’s one less problem.

I tend to tag ongoing projects, so the head may be dynamic, but cloning a tag will generate a stable release, or branch point. That’s a fairly typical Git workflow. I’m not a fan of too many branches. I used the Mainline Model (a Perforce pattern) for years, but I like no more than two branches, these days (dev and master, and sometimes, dev can be in a private repo, squashing to master). Often, I only have one branch. If I create a branch (like a retrospective fix to a release tag), I merge that branch back into master, or apply the same fix to master (not my preferred pattern). I will, occasionally, create experimental or exploratory branches, which are short-lived, and designed to be reintegrated with master. Again, not a unique workflow. This will be familiar to many folks.

So, lots of “done,” as mileposts on a continuum. In some cases (like when I am preparing course materials), I may do a lot of work in a dev branch, and squash over to master, in order to reduce the “noise” in master, but the “done bits” are always tags in master. I always reintegrate back to dev, so the branches remain in sync, and the tags propagate to dev.

One exception to the “continuum model,” is that fix tags may be in small, short-lived branches. If possible, I try to add the tag to master, at the reintegration point, but that isn’t always practical or safe, especially if I can’t actually reintegrate, but have to introduce the fix as new code, down the road.

Since I have started using the Swift Package Manager, this has been a good fit. I believe that many package managers rely on that pattern, so I don’t think the way that I work is especially creative or standout. Pretty much garden-variety configuration management.

Speaking of package managers, I often extract subprojects from my work in the master branch, as I progress, spinning them off as standalone package projects, with their own project lifecycle, and reintroduce them as dependencies. This gives me little pockets of “done,” that have encapsulated state and identity (and their own repo), along with focused testing. Each project I spin off, is one less thing to worry about, and another tool on the pegboard, for future projects.

So, in my case, “done” is really just a signpost along the road, but there can be many signposts.
There is very few labs in the world, which can do synthesis of the virus from the published paper. One of them had major incident[0] (equipment was stolen from the lab by rescue team after blast and fire in the lab) right before epidemic.

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/17/health/russia-lab-explosi...
> The work I do feels rather pointless in a world collapsing around me with no short or long term future.

Stop reading twitter, stop watching the news. Honestly the world isn’t representative to what they’re reporting and they profit from selling you fear.
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In the context of humanity. People do this even in non-capitalist countries. Or do you think that when a country is not capitalist the people suddenly stop doing things to benefit themselves?
Until you start seeing times like 24:45 in your app. The spec has some really strange behaviour in it that defaults to "1-24"-hour time instead of the common "0-23" if you specify hour12: false.

Only Chrome seems to have actually implemented the spec this strictly, they don't want to change it: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=104579...
> A pointer is a memory address.

This is an amazingly wrong statement. In assembly you deal with memory addresses. Pointers in C are a much higher level abstraction.

> On current mainstream Intel processors, it occupies four bytes of memory (because an int is four bytes wide).

This depends on the compiler as well as the processor.
Facebook ignored blatant political manipulation around the world
So much this. It’s embarrassing to see otherwise quality-products forced to prostitute themselves to the god of ads. For example, I enjoy Brooklyn 99 like the next guy, but the way their writing bends towards lame product-placement every other episode is really jarring.
Probably a side project for a full time iOS dev who wanted an excuse to mess about with SwiftUI and decided to use the tool they are most familiar with
Oh I think it's entirely plausible this was an inadvertent escapee from a research facility, either of a naturally occurring virus under study or a bio-weapon. Neither possibility can be entirely discounted and I'd like to see a thorough investigation into the origins of the virus.

That doesn't mean this paper is any use whatsoever. It's evidence is sketch, pasted together from snippets of other articles. There is no new research here at all, and it comes from sponsors with a long and well established track record of peddling disinformation. So sure, please do keep an open mind, but that goes both ways on theories like this.
I found this to be a very powerful statement, that exceeds the issue with Assange:

"Freedom of the press now rests with the honourable few: the exceptions, the dissidents on the internet who belong to no club, who are neither rich nor laden with Pulitzers, but produce fine, disobedient, moral journalism — those like Julian Assange."
My RPi 4 has been running Tailscale at home for some time, forwarding to my home network. Works great and very stable.

I think somebody even compiled Tailscale to run natively on my Synology NAS.
> It also isn't a requirement that C++ use mangled names.

Overloading requires the type information to be part of the symbol "name" (ie, whatever is used for symbol lookup and linking) wether that is a mangled string or more complex data structure.
All of these can implement policies to resolve this issue. The West could do so simply by encouraging immigration, though it's probably hard to gather the political will for that. China could think about such policies, but birth rate and the population pyramid are less flexible and more difficult to fake than GDP growth. Also, being an authoritarian (not totalitarian) state means that their government is not completely immune to popular demands: the one-child policy was more like a 1.5-child policy because of its huge numbers of exceptions and special considerations. I sincerely hope that they have become more careful when trying to steer population growth.
> This is a good way to escape reality

The news isn’t reality, it’s the world through the lens of what the journalist who reports it wants you to see. They don’t report objective reality. They will willingly admit that their job isn’t reporting objective reality if you ask them.
there isn't a single way to refactor code, code can be refactored in many different directions to pursue many different objectives.

Here's a few arbitrary ideas:

* Scrape_it is an arbitrary python project that shows up in google search for "pypi scrape" [1]. Looking at the code, it doesn't appear to have any automated tests. Goal: write a single unit test for the example of usage shown in the readme. The unit test should work without any dependency on : network access to remote websites or other services running locally, the current time, data files in the filesystem. Refactor by making minimal safe changes to the code as/if required in order to write a unit test.

* scipy's vendored copy of the useful L-BFGS-B optimisation algorithm [2] has a bunch of calls to a timer(ttime) subroutine, but the timer(ttime) subroutine was patched so it doesn't do anything. But there's still many calls to timer(ttime) throughout the lbfgsb.f code. Goal: simplify the code by identifying if any remaining variables and code related to cpu timing within lbfgsb.f can be safely removed without changing the behaviour of the algorithm. If it can be safely removed, remove it. Tricky: demonstrate with some degree of confidence that your change is safe and doesn't break behaviour!

* fixCache, featured on HN a few days ago [3], includes a rule to decide if a git commit is a "fix commit" based on user-supplied keyboards identified in the commit message. Goal: modify fixCache to make this functionality more flexible, so a user can still configure fixCache to use the current behaviour, but can also optionally configure fixCache to call a custom user-defined javascript function that can decide if a commit is a "fix commit" or not using all information available about the commit (e.g. which files were touched, the contents of the changes to those files, etc) instead of a list of keywords. Refactor as/if necessary to implement this feature.

Further reading: https://testing.googleblog.com/2008/07/how-to-write-3v1l-unt... , Michael Feathers' book "working effectively with legacy code": https://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780131177055/samplep...

[1] https://pypi.org/project/scrape-it/
[2] https://github.com/scipy/scipy/tree/f865e9ed01be30c52f2b3841...
[3] https://github.com/aavshr/fixCache
I've ended up asking questions that were explained in the docs pretty well more than I dare to think about.

The issue, I think, is that while the people in a community live and breathe $technology, I'm just a tourist; $technology is just one of many things I have to work with, know and understand, and it's a lot of mental effort to try and balance them all.

I mean recently I'm running into more and more issues with $technology and am considering moving away from it; I've scanned the docs again, but finding no answer for my issue with $technology I've opened up a GH question issue. Usually the community manager is pretty helpful.

But the thing there: The community manager manages just that project, it's his job, it's his library, he wrote most of the code and the docs, and if anyone knows his stuff, it's him. But for me, his library is just one of many gears in my system.

At least the docs for that one are manageable, can probably be read end to end in about an hour.
Dozens of such incidents also happened in USA, Soviet Union/RF, etc., including recent incident with Ebola. It's not unique to China.
In regards to this discussion, there is this one tweet summarizing the main back and forth:

https://twitter.com/phonologist/status/982023915319906304