skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
How much total labor time do you think goes into a single pencil? And if it's a non-trivial amount, then how in the world are pencils remotely as cheap as they actually are?

Yes all those steps take work but you get a truly ridiculous amount of ore out of one person labor hour, enough for God knows how many thousands of pencils.

I think you're confusing total labor volume involved in an entire supply chain that makes billions of pencils each year, and then what the person is responding to which is that you divide the total amount of labor spent by the total number of swords produced and it still ends up being hundreds to thousands of hours of labor per sword. This isn't remotely true of pencils using modern automated factory production.
Australia asks Google to remove images from top of sacred site Uluru
I've been able to dip into Swift codebases with zero previous experience without too much trouble. I do have Rust experience which helps. But never-the-less everyday Swift seemed pretty readable to me.
C-x and C-c make some sense as cut and copy. But C-v, C-z, C-y as paste, undo, and redo just make little sense. The first two make sense for their proximity to x and c in the QWERTY layout. y only makes sense if it happened to be unassigned.

Keyboard shortcuts will always fall into one of two categories: That makes perfect sense (usually mapping to a mnemonic like C-a for "select all"); That's totally arbitrary (C-y). It makes sense (and cua-mode offers it) to offer the opportunity to rebind the keys to the mainstream arbitrarily selected shortcuts, but it also makes sense to keep what's been used by emacs users for 40 years since that's what they're used to at this point (oh hell, I've been using it for 20 years, time has flown).
Customers expect to have use the of the money they deposit with you, so once you take deposits you are the payment system.

“Robust banking system” is inherently tied to reserve ratios, or having the deposits on hand to cover the loans you’re writing.

A bank that only writes loans and doesn’t have deposits is the opposite of robust. If any bank gets to do this it would be the central bank. Payment facilitation is less of a superpower and can be more safely entrusted to the private sector.
> There are two reasons for this. One is that Google isn’t the app market leader and so the pressures aren’t there.

And yet, the Play Store is still the dominant app market within the Android ecosystem despite Google's lackadaisical caretaking of it (leading to security and quality issues). This situation would only be heightened in an opened iOS situation, because Apple would still maintain control as is its wont, and because most consumers would be fine staying with the App Store.

> The other is that secondary app stores are basically crippled on Android by comparison to the play store, which is why Epic is also suing google.

Which is a situation that could likely repeat in a (semi-)open iOS for any number of reasons, Epic's legal adventures notwithstanding.

> It just isn’t comparable, so you can’t use it as an example of what would happen.

I disagree. Even if it doesn't exactly repeat, it's likely very similar to it. Ultimately, iOS and Android are more similar than different in that they were both created and promoted by a single business entity. We're not talking about an ecosystem launched by a secondary less powerful company (webOS) or an open source project (Firefox OS, Ubuntu Mobile).

> I think we ultimately need a more open environment where what people can install is not controlled by Apple.

We agree on that.

> If on the other hand we get a court mandated soliton, or anti-trust action, I think we’ll end up further away from a truly open, competitive environment than ever.
All the air will be sucked out of that possibility into what will effectively be a government authorized cartel.

I think given the anemic nature of antitrust action in this country over the past few decades, this is likely politically infeasible, a doomsday scenario bordering on hysteria. Hence, we arrive full-circle: scaremongering.
Harsh words. I agree with the statement, but Rust is used not only for system programming and Haskell has its niche beyond university.

I think Swift is where .NET was in its first decade. While capable of so much more, it is limited by its designers and primary purpose so it cannot go beyond. The tight coupling to UI products is a burden an ecosystem carries. Java won in the backend not with is UI, JavaScript with node/npm before Angular reset the frontend and C# just when .NET Core pushed it into spaces it has not been before (apis, lambdas, etc).
I think the author over emphasized the brittleness. At the scale you would need the stuff, it would be much harder and more expensive to move than it is worth. For the same reason that even today things like gravel and sand are almost always locally sourced.

Remember that in the medieval period, even sacks were relatively valuable things.
What a fascinating way to fight a totalitarian crackdown. The article doesn't seem to talk about its feasibility against the government though. Is there no way they could stop it, bar actually damaging people's satellite dishes?
>Some resources should be spent on preventing laundering and fraud with the system, but this needs to be done in the banking system as well, with the costs passed on to the consumers.

I feel that you glossed over the most important part of credit card companies. I would say 100% of the reason I have a credit card is their diligence in preventing and solving fraud on my account. I would imagine the same to be true for many financially responsible HN readers as well.
That's... I don't know how I feel about that. Good on you!

My sleep went from 8 hours a night to 6, at best. I can hardly concentrate in my apartment. It is sweltering hot and surrounded by constant noise. I've had to work longer hours to make up for the loss in productivity.

My commute used to be a pleasant bike ride. Now I am wearing a dent into the couch cushions.

I have gained 10 pounds, despite eating less. I have started running, but I don't have the time or stamina to run more than a few miles each day.
Stallman was right yet again. If people want to stop being shocked at the inevitable abuses by big tech, they should probably read his book and his blog.
Cultural and historical reasons do play a huge role, but we can see similar cost-saving argument for a drug that is distinctly less harmful than all the other drugs: Tobacco. My country is likely to start banning it sometimes in the few decades, and the argument being used is one dominated by costs and risks. Smokers are seen as a drain on the health care system, a health risk to other people in terms of second hand smoking, a major problem with littering, and irritating to people in public spaces. A lot of apartment owners and spaces around them are already trying to forbid it.

It will hopefully never end up as bad that people go to jail for it, but as culture is changing and public opinion about smoking goes more negative, tobacco as an accept social drug are loosing acceptance. In theory they could change it so that smokers loose access to public health care but I doubt such solution is preferable over simply making smoking illegal.

Last year they even made an half-attempt at making smoking illegal during a very dry period under the argument that smoking was a major risk for causing fire.
I imagine getting wide support for Ractor will be easier than Rubinius and other async Ruby attempts since it’s actually part of the core language.
The purchasers have more information than you give them credit for.

Pre-iPhone all loads of garbage were preinstalled on phones by carriers, and phone software was mostly garbage. Part of why iPhone uptake was so large was because Apple specifically refused to let this happen. A lot of non-tech friends I have, have owned Androids before, and anecdotally many don't have good memories of the state of the Android ecosystem around apps.

Right to repair I do believe people should have. But that's related on principle but not the same issue at hand.
If it's a competition: find the member of your team that is best at presenting/pitching. Make sure they set a lot of time aside for practise, because to be honest that's the only thing that actually counts in the vast majority of hackathons.

I kind of burned out on them for this exact reason: I toiled away making a working demo of my idea only to watch teams with a couple of design wireframes and a splashy presentation win. I thought a hackathon was more connected to the old school notion of programmers hacking things together... the vast majority of the time it is not. But hey, it is what it is, just know what you're getting into going in!

(I wish there were more hackathons where it was required to demo a working prototype. Would emphasise the "hack" aspect of the whole thing!)
I am also situated in (but not originally from) Eastern Europe. On a personal level I pretty much completely agree with your opinion.

However, that might be in part because I like to take time to prepare food and actually know how to cook. One of the things I love most about Eastern Europe, is that cooking is an art that's not yet (completely) lost on the majority of people (or at least not the female half of it). Be that because of traditional values, a taste/love for quality food (and even knowing what good food tastes like in the first place), or merely a direct consequence of poverty, it still is a quality that should never be underestimated. I firmly believe that many in the West literally no longer know what they are missing.

While growing up, I definitely got the impression that even basic cooking skills became increasing less common knowledge among younger generations in most of Western Europe (I've heard it's even worse for the USA). Arguably it also deteriorated in Eastern Europe, but certainly not to the same extend.

You are right, it isn't just about cost alone. It's also people no longer knowing how to make (healthy) food themselves anymore (or just not from basic ingredient). That said, I myself have been many times in situations (while living in Western Europe) where eating shitty food ended up a lot cheaper than cooking a proper meal. For anyone unable to cook, that will certainly be even worse.

While it might be more of a philosophical question/opinion, one could ask to which extend it's about availability (both referring to ingredients and knowledge) and to which extend it's a question of (bad) choices. It could even be argued that it's the relative luxury (even spoiled behavior) that makes people eat shitty. Marketing, time constraints, and probably a number of other factors might also be to blame (to varying degrees).

Either way, from the statistics I've seen (which should of course always be treated with skepticism), it does at least appear that the poor part of the (Western) demographic eat significantly more unhealthy than the more affluent part. I have often seen the prices of quality food being used as an argument for that trend.

I have to admit, that as someone who can cook a meal out of almost nothing (and at times literally was forced to), I always have mixed feelings about such claims. Still, I did experience myself that living on a budget and cooking from basics was actually a lot easier in Eastern Europe than it was (for me) in Western Europe. It might not have been only about price and availability, but I'm pretty sure that it was a significant factor (for me). A lack of skills sure wasn't a factor in my case. Time constraints neither, since the were the same for me in both situations/locations.
The intro to 50 Cent's Massacre may also be a good chice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNBbQV_rCzQ
We changed the URL from https://feeds.feedblitz.com/cccblog.

Please submit the original source—that's one of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Everything old is new again. This is how Smalltalk managed changes. Simple and straightforward.
Yes this 100%. My son is just finishing high school and is taking an interest in code to the level of questioning if it’s worth learning emacs/vim. At the time I spoke of how emacs seems to be approaching a neovim moment and then pointed out that practically if the community was not prepared to invest in supporting new users like him, then he’s better off not supporting them and to look solidly at neovim (beyond the default of vscode).
This is a pitifully naive or disingenuous argument.

Even if a "free market" allowed Apple to get where they are, it doesn't mean a society can't say that the current way of things is harmful to the market. Government has a place in regulating network effects.
I hear x86 is dynamically typed
There's nothing about Swift that has me interested, curious or excited. That said, I haven't done much research into it. What is new and interesting about Swift?

From looking through the swift official site, it just seems like a new C# or Java with ahead of time compilation.

The only slightly unique bit I can find is that the syntax is a bit more JavaScript inspired.

Am I missing something? Or that's it? It's just the C# of Apple?

For example, Rust has borrow checking for zero cost memory safety.

Go has concurrent sequential processes and its accompanying goroutines.

Haskell is a fully pure language.

Python has cool indent based syntax that looks like pseudocode.

Ruby is objects all the way down and has this unique concept of blocks for passing code around to be yielded.

Clojure has immutable persistent data-structures as default and software transactional memory, while also being a Lisp bringing macros and all to the JVM.

Erlang has actor concurrency.

Etc.

So in a similar vein, what would be Swift's innovation or originality here?
Whew, that is the sentiment of a true plutocrat and elitist. You're weak unless you're rich and pay to rent in the good part of town. Sure, it's desirable to look serious to commercial partners and investors, but mostly it's an Internet branding tax. Most of your customers will Google your site.
Empirically, we know that animals/insects feel pain. The same cannot be said for plants at this time. Therefore we can act on the information we have and not what we might speculate on, until such time as evidence provides a definitive answer.

If at some time in the future it can be proven that plants feel pain, then it will depend upon their level of pain as they do not have a central nervous system nor brain as animals/insects.

Everyone will have to decide for themselves what course of action to follow, as we do need to consume food in order to survive.

Star Trek replicators would solve all these philosophical quandaries.
I've developed software since the early 1980s. I've used Emacs continuously since the late 1980s. Perhaps you should respond to the substance of a posting rather than complaining that a geezer used the term geezer to describe people like himself.

EDIT You created your account two days ago and you're already accusing people of ageism? Get off my lawn.
You might want to check out https://github.com/compnerd/swift-win32 as well
We're talking about different things. I'm sure the LibreWolf team could develop a browser that meets some specifications and renders some websites some of the time. What they can't build is a Chrome competitor. It would become an often-broken hobby project only used by enthusiasts, like the others you've listed.
You're a visionary, and I'm so glad reading you rise the gravity issue. When it comes to it, this consideration and the whole extraterrestrial direction-setting exercise, as simple and rational I expect it to go when I speak with others or read their comments, become instead a maturity test I'm waiting for in people willing to take it, and sadly I rarely notice anyone passing it. Another related thought I've had the joy seeing echoed in this discussion thread was the first sentence of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24574145

Mars is a rock useful for many things, no doubt, but not for humans to live on. As challenging as it seem right now, Venus' problems are solvable, and it just happens to offer the necessary conditions for humans to live on and avoid speciation. If this kind of terrestrial gravity was nowhere to be found but on a planet somewhere as distant as Pluto, we'd still had to go for that (and be thankful for it to exist in our Solar system at all) instead of going for Mars-sized planet and orbit. It just fascinates me that it happens to be the closest us. Humanity will get there and will learn a lot from the process, which is nearly a must-have experience for any further much costlier colonization endeavor on another planetary system.
Newsfave.com – The internet's news start page with 500 news sites on homepage
> Isn't that a text book definition of a coup?

Yes, also completely made up.

Trump talks a lot, often times incoherently and faster than he thinks. This is not the greatest quality in a president, but also not the worst.
> This is not because "party B" wants to raise taxes on the middle class. It's because Senate budget reconciliation rules require a revote after 8 years for certain revenue changes. It's a parliamentarian technicality. There's almost no doubt that, if they were in power in 2025, they will vote to continue those cuts. If it was up to them, they would reduce taxes to 0 across the board.

Yep, they didn't even get it down to 0 and already increased our debt by 2 trillion (more than Obama). Is their plan just start printing money when needed, because some countries already tried that.

> None of this is relevant to the discussion at hand: almost everyone got a Federal tax cut in 2017 (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/business/economy/income-t...), which means that there's room for tax increases at the State level.

This is exactly what Democrats were complaining about look at the income and how many god tax cut, realize that ones who didn't got it either they got the same amount of tax or (more likely) paid more.

Compare that to a median income, also be aware that the individual tax cuts for middle class gradually expire every year.
To be fair, the previous person didn't know you were going to try to plant vegetables in their landfill.
The reason there isn't a third OS is because building a good OS and app ecosystem is hard. MS flunked, Blackberry flunked, to name a few heavyweights.

Companies winning with good consumer solutions to complex problems isn't arm-twisting in any sense of the word.
There are lots of people who cannot get a bank or credit union account for one simple reason: Lack of identification.

I know it's hard to believe in today's tech bubble, but there are hundreds of thousands of people in America who simply don't have any identification. They might have a Social Security number they remember, but that's about it.

I'm not talking about hobos or criminals, but just people who choose to live a different lifestyle.

I was first introduced to this society when me and a bunch of friends cycled across the continent. We ran into all kinds of interesting — and very nice — people who just weren't on any official radar. Drifters, in a sense. People who just enjoy the freedom of working in a coffee shop in one city for a few months, then a bar in another city for a few months, then camping for a few months.

I'd forgotten about this subculture until a couple of weeks ago when the New York Times did a photo piece about the people who still ride Amtrak during a pandemic. One couple that was interviewed had to take Amtrak because they didn't have any official documents that would let them get on a plane.
NumPy’s contribution to Python is remarkable, next could be even more so
It’s not a funding problem. It’s a lack of National policy problem. Every little fiefdom of government is creating their own covid policy. Even overlapping districts and library systems will have drastically different policies. If everyone pooled their resources outcomes would be much better but instead every organization is spending significant resources on drastically different unaligned covid policy.
This also applies if you sign up for, say, HBO from an iOS device. You can keep using the same subscription on Android but can't cancel.

If you subscribe to HBO on Google Play, you can keep using it and cancel it on iOS.

The asymmetry is bad and Apple should be held responsible for it.
Successful parts of Servo where integrated in Gecko, as was intended. So, in a way Gecko is largely Servo.
In chemical engineering school I learned that water is the biggest input to most chemical plants. Even oil refineries take in more water than oil (mainly for cooling).
After using Emacs for 10+ years, I've switched to VSCode for a really simple reason: fuzzy matching a file in a project. I've tried so many different plugins and hacks to get it to work, but it never did quite work. Searching for a filename either matches the wrong file, or new files that were freshly added are no longer there.
I disagree - by and large, we don't need to "rewrite for tomorrow". Almost every significant problem in Computer Science and Software Engineering was solved (well) decades ago, often in the 1960s. Security is a bigger issue now, but it was largely solved years ago.

The problem is that we do engage in so much "rewriting", instead of leveraging known good, quality code (or at least fully-fleshed out algos, etc.) in our "new, modern, elegant, and trendy" software edifices of crap.

To me, this may be the one really good thing to come of the cloud (as opposed to the re-mainframe-ication of IT): the "OS" of the 21st century, allowing plumbing together proven scalable and reliable cloud/network services to build better software. (Again, not a new idea, this was behind the "Unix Philosophy" of pipes, filters, and making each program do one thing well. Eventually, it will be in fashion to realize this really is a better way...)

We need smaller, better software, not the latest trendy languages, insanely complex platforms that no one understands, and toolchains of staggering complexity that produce crap code so bloated that it requires computers thousands of times faster than the Crays of the 1990s just to do ordinary desktop stuff. (Seriously, folks, the Raspberry Pi 4 on the next table is a rough match for the Cray we had in Houston when I worked for Chevron in the early 90s! Think about that, and then think about how little data you really need to deal with to do the job, vs what you're actually shuffling around.)
Indeed. There was actually a meeting of the two Presidents (Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou) a few years ago in Singapore. Iirc they carefully avoided those titles and used something like "leader of the mainland" and "leader of Taiwan" instead to go round the issue.
Of course the meeting also happened because Ma Ying-jeou is from the KMT so both sides did at least agree that this was a Chinese domestic issue.
What do you mean by "so security focused that C/C++ just won't do"?

Anything on the internet should be cautious of memory unsafety issues.
Something like an image processing library I won't consider 'security focused' yet I would trust one written in Rust over one written in C.
and some of them turn into magicians. When it works it is a joy to behold.
Try to re-read my comment detached from the original posters overall argument since I actually made no mention of it.

My problem (as I though was clear, perhaps not) is with dismissively equating (any) smartphone with consoles. Especially as it relates to business models and user freedoms. It's intellectually lazy and is especially a disservice when used dismissively ("end of story"). We can and should do better.
VPRI archives:
https://www.youtube.com/user/yoshikiohshima
If only there were projects that repackaged Emacs together with packages which adapt the program for people who prefer other keybindings. And failing that, maybe Emacs should include some facility for remapping key bindings?
The next step would be allowing citizens to vote directly on the laws that govern central bank policy.