skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Even in the comments here people will bring up countries like japan as a contrast. Why did the Japanese, unlike the Arabs, rise again after their fall?

Could the centuries of direct colonial rule by the Ottomans and Europeans played a role? The Ottomans were by no measure gentle but the Europeans were nothing short of barbaric. Take Palestine. To solidify their hold the British simply rounded up and executed fighting age men the moment rebellion started brewing.

The stakes are high and the Europeans knew this. The Arabs sat on oil. Lots of it. Colonialism is doomed to fail because the uncivilized eventually rise up (imagine that). Enter Sykes-Picot and neo-colonialism. Give them the illusion of being free, back brutal dictators over the people, and divide and conquer along sectarian lines.

Finally enter Israel. To really support for Israel Herzl, the founder of Zionism, wrote that Israel would “form part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”. And they played their part. They are the wildcard ready to bomb any middle eastern country should they rise up and crawl towards independence. See all the nuclear power plants they bombed while they were still being built.
Rust has a few interlocking behaviors that provide its memory safety, a few of the most important are:

- The borrow checker enforces mutable XOR shared references.

- The compiler does not allow use of local variables before they're assigned to, requires structs to be completely initialized, etc..

- All the builtin datastructures perform bounds checks

- The compiler disallows deferencing raw pointers except in unsafe blocks.

There's a lot of good things to be said about modern C++, particular smart pointers. However, it's significantly less resilient to common mistakes than Rust is: https://alexgaynor.net/2019/apr/21/modern-c++-wont-save-us/
Which is where DNS-over-TLS (DoT) comes in. It provides privacy.
War in Afghanistan was a proxy for the cold war where primarily US and UK (but also China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) backed the mujahideen (including Taliban) to keep USSR spending a vast amount of money in the region while also cutting their income.

They succeeded in their intent and the fall of the USSR was so sudden that hundreds of soviet tanks were abandoned on the field

http://www.artificialowl.net/2008/08/ussr-red-army-tanks-gra...

A few years after the end of the war US left the region, refused to help with the reconstruction and handled control to Pakistan that in exchange for routes and security made pacts with local warlords and the Taliban.

With the consequences we know.

I wish I could understand what the Russian Walter White is singing in that YouTube video!
Well....

Politicians like to be recognized as "great" and a the Nobel Peace Prize does appeal to many. Trump's desire is a good example. If you avoid controversial figures, you avoid using the prize as a motivator exactly where you need it.

For example, Begin/Sadaat and Arafat/Rabin. The first peace worked out. The second one didn't. But, all four of these people led a pretty violent life as militaristic and nationalistic leaders. They're all extremely controversial in the middle east, and in their own countries.

I definitely don't think avoiding divisive political figures is a good. thing. That said, I don't think he's earned one.
Some years ago Polish people living and working in Germany declared apostasis to avoid German church tax. They were suprised after returning back when their parish in Poland refused child baptism or church burial..
This article makes for an interesting read. I'm not qualified to evaluate its historical claims but its claims about the current state of science in the Muslim world don't agree with what little knowledge I have in that area. That knowledge comes from having been acquainted with a number of Muslim students and scientists both in the US and in France. I did not at all get the impression that they came from a culture that does not value open rational inquiry, despite several, at least, being devout Muslims. I'm sure Fundamentalists are deeply opposed to anything resembling science but as far as I know they are a minority in most of the Muslim world. I should qualify these statements by noting that most of the Muslims I knew came from the Maghreb rather than say the Persian Gulf area so maybe things are very different there.

There are also some other possible explanations for the relative lack of success of scientific research in Muslim countries today that the article does not consider. First many of these countries are relatively poor and under-developed so if you are born there and have the opportunity to study science you are likely to be encouraged to go into more practical fields, like engineering, rather than pure research, which is very under-funded in these countries, again mostly due to overall lack of resources. Secondly if you really want to go into research your best bet is to emigrate to the west if that is at all possible. Again some of this doesn't apply to the oil rich states of the Persian Gulf, but I think the brain drain effect is at work even there.
It seems more like the Time magazine “Person of the year” cover.

Stalin and Hitler both graced the cover at various points in time.
MacBook Pros definitely don't have a great battery life.
I think Face ID could be used to create the point map, instead of generating it from an image. They could also use Face ID to prevent the tech from malicious deep fakes, e.g only allow people to use this feature I when Face ID confirms the user and the manipulated photo are the same person.
It was a slap on the wrist.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/503541/downlo... has the judgement. Read the following phrase and consider the size of the truck you can drive through it.

Nothing in this judgement shall prevent Microsoft from providing Consideration to any OEM with respect to any Microsoft product or service where that Consideration is commensurate with the absolute level or amount of that OEM's development, distribution, promotion, or licensing of that Microsoft product or service.

When IBM was competing with companies that got such "Consideration" and it couldn't, guess how that worked out?
Geting 4x Speedup with .NET Core 3.0 SIMD Intrinsics (2019)
There are those expensive head rest attachments. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005L9ATK6
The whole point of Maslow's triangle is that first, people meet their basic needs before moving higher up in the triangle. So how are you escaping the triangle when you stipulate "once you have your basic needs met"
> When you’re backed into a corner

Don't flatter yourself.

> I’m directly addressing your arguments

You haven't directly addressed anything. I just gave you two very clear examples where you just change the subject to something I've never claimed instead of answering the questions/arguments.

> It will always be a part of the value chain.

Alright, fair enough. Good for you.
The situation with Coinbase is the opposite of what you describe. Coinbase isn't moving into new territory that its employees find objectionable, e.g. by starting to develop crypto for the military. The activists at Coinbase are angry because the company isn't moving into their demanded new territory.
The only way to counter that is through collective bargaining, which many people on this site seem to view as beneath them. “Geopay” really isn’t any different from how Google/Apple/etc colluded in the past to suppress developer wages.
When I unexpectedly found myself responsible for feeding 100 people at imminent risk of starvation, half way around the world, WFP made it happen. Not only did they make an urgent delivery, they paved the way for a partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization to set up a sustainable way for the people to feed themselves long-term (chickens: eggs to eat and to sell to buy other food). When talking about food security, even small numbers like this have an enormous impact, and it is truly mind-boggling to consider the overall impact of their work.
Not sure what do you mean by Nonsense, are you saying current state of Iraq and Libya is ok. This is what Australian Traveller Govt site says about Egypt

Kidnapping is a risk for travellers in Egypt.
Violent crime can happen. Take extra care if you're a women and alone.
Terrorists have attacked places popular with tourists in recent years.

https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/africa/egypt
The package manager is one of my favorite things about Julia. No more dependency hell. Just type "add <package>" in the REPL.
I wish all these file systems told me clearly if and how they guarantee file integrity over time.
Many people consider science like a religion. For example, many people don't understand evolution, they think some magic force gradually turned fishes into humans. No wonder it is sometimes put on the same level as creationism. But to be honest, it doesn't really matter. If you are not a scientist, faith is a shortcut that allows you to focus more on what matters more to you.

The difference is that you don't need faith. With enough motivation, you can probably get to see the virus on an election microscope. It is difficult. Just operating an election microscope is an art, and getting the necessary security clearances to work with deadly pathogens can be tricky. Almost no one does it, but sometimes, a crazy enough guy spends way too much time challenging a well established theory. Most of the times, the results are the same as what mainstream science says, but there are a few exceptions. This random poking keeps science in check.

The current pandemic is good at exposing the "non-faith" aspects of science. Covid is not airborne, ah, maybe it is, hydroxychloroquine works, no it doesn't, case fatality rate is 5%, no, 0.5%, no, 1%, it attacks the lungs, the nose, you keep immunity for a long time, no you don't, yes you do, etc... It is constantly changing, and this is science at work. A priest will not change his mind, he will not receive a new revision of the Bible every week. That rarely shown aspect is a bit unsettling to those with a faith-based view of science, but totally normal for those who are practicing.

Modern academia has its problems. We often talk about the "reproducibility crisis", but the simple fact it is widely recognized as a problem sets it apart from religion.

And BTW, while I am an atheist myself, I am not against religion. Religion offers stability and answers that science is unable to provide, and both can coexist.
First, I feel you misrepresented my comment. “Saying something at work” doesn’t quite convey the same thing as “given a platform in front of hundreds of employees at a formal event with full support and endorsement by HR and company leadership.” The latter sounds a lot more like actual discrimination because it’s backed up by explicit and established power structures.

Second, you’ve selected examples separated in time by decades. When you grant yourself the power of time travel, it certainly does become a lot easier to come up with examples. The world is changing fast nowadays. The landscape is completely different today than it was even 10 years ago.
16000 Doctors and Scientists Sign Declaration Opposing a 2nd Covid Lockdown
Good point - but soldiers at least have a choice in enlisting and have some idea of potential consequences.
Apple wouldn’t even notice. For example recently there was an article here about 5 hackers that spent 3 months attacking Apple (white hat) and Apple seemed unaware until the bug reports were sent in.
I struggle with the concept of gender because it appears to be akin to a ‘racialised theory of sex‘.

I’m male. My appearance, sense of dress, interests and attractions are my unique personality - I don’t think they come from a biologically inherent gender, nor do I think it’s socially progressive to promote the idea that they do or should.

Edit: Are you sure you didn’t downvote for ‘heretical opinion’ rather than actual content? Please explain, if not.
That is not scientifically accurate. A significant fraction of influenza cases are also asymptomatic, and they are capable of spreading the disease to others.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4586318/

You could have already killed someone without even knowing it by transmitting the flu to them. There's no way to know for sure.

US federal and state handling of the pandemic has been mostly terrible. But even if we had competent, honest leaders I doubt the long-term death toll would be much different. Community transmission was already widespread by the time anyone realized there was a serious problem, and by that point it was too late to contain the pandemic.

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/when-did-covid-hit-earliest-dea...
There are winners and losers every time there's large change.

Those people slogging out 1.5hr commutes from the outer suburbs are the winners because remote work even with a "you must be in the office 1 day a week" policy makes their land more attractive. The people who mortgaged themselves up to their eyeballs to get in on those good inner suburb commutes and schools are the losers because suddenly outer suburb housing is a more viable alternative to what they own. The people living in illegal 300sf studio departments in people's basements are neither since they weren't all in on any particular side. They can rent somewhere further out and cheaper with space for an office without too much friction.

Back in the early 90s a lot of cities were dumps compared to today. The people who bought there and held on for 20-30yr won because a lot of cities gentrified.
Just wanted to point out there did actually turn out to be a secret pedophile ring, you know, the one led by Epstein. Not every conspiracy theory is false.
> but these days the development focus seems to be on type hints and unicode support.

It's a result of the language maturing. The tradeoff is between groundbreaking innovation and being a stable language with a large user base. You can't have it both ways.
The greatest way to support art is UBI. Why should creativity be subject to the arbitrary whims of the lowest common denominator? For every Harry Potter there are hundreds of authors who can't even make enough to write full time. And some of what we consider to be quality literature would never be commercially successful in a modern context.
Except the part about how buying the dongle from Apple was anything other than a 6, and you lose.
Esports and Money in 2020
You are right and you are wrong. What’s happening in the Arabic world is far from this. What’s happening in the Arab world is a continuation of existing European and US foreign policy which seeks to maintain the low cost of energy by ensuring that the Middle East remains subjugated. It has to be the entire Middle East to ensure that those Saudis never look up and demand to be free. Instead they keep pumping that oil and selling it on the global market.
The Way to Sustainable and Ethical Human-Centered Design
I meant: "...that they mention this broken implementation of Firefox"

Having a touch-optimized version of Firefox with all the desktop features would of course be a great selling point.
Americans Won't Live in the Pod
Taking aside all the deaths (I'm still afraid that my parents and parents-in-law will catch COVID).

The pandemic is doing a really great work on shifting minds of a lot of WFH-awerse companies/managers, and is doing an interesting shifts in economies (e.g. at my country a lot, and I mean a lot of people started doing online purchases for things that were normally bought offline - e.g. I was surprised how much I can save of diapers alone).

Some services thrive (all online) but others are declining (restaurants, pubs), interesting times.
Dude, I know what a normie is. Everyone (or at least everyone on HN) knows what a normie is.

I don't know what evidence there is that Matt Levine not a normie at his core, or how it show up in his writing.
So I was saying that the US is responsible for their destruction, and you thought that I think it is ok?
The article I linked you to is from a very pro-Bitcoin source lol. The actual research note was linked from it here: [1]

> Any artificially-induced inflation of the money supply is economically destructive, promoting malinvestment and waste.

I'd love to see your sources there, because I don't agree. Inflation plays important roles like pushing for allocation of capital. Inflation only matters if you hold dollar bills under your mattress. Once you invest it in anything, including real estate or a savings account, the effect is decimated, or reduced below zero.

> Inflation does have an important role in the economy. When it happens naturally it tells investors that we are in desperate need of more capital investment.

What is "natural inflation" in Bitcoin? Does it naturally sprout more coins in steady state? Or are you suggesting velocity of money in a currency unable to respond to externalities should suffice?

[1] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d580747908cdc0001e67...
i'd say "the internet" is the biggest "network of networks" and ipv6 is not really a part but a separate network ie. not interoperable with "the internet". maybe it will be more important some day, but not today.
This is getting pretty far from the original point... but I'm dubious.

First, the internet isn't really distributed anymore. The media part, at least, is controlled by a handful of operators. It is a many-2-many medium, which is a strong distributed quality... but IDK. Idealism about the internet is starting to seem quaint and naive. I did think so, though, at one point.
Guess question is who will be next in wake of the possibility of negative interest rates.
Funny you mention Saddam. He was supported by the CIA to overthrow a government which leaned communist.
What countries are good for this?
> you'd be hard pressed to find many who claimed it's been figured out.

Here's a small list to begin with: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk...
As an American, I do believe that the US has some of the best doctors, research, and medical technology in the world. I also believe it's really, really expensive, and out of reach for too much of our population, largely due to how to tie health insurance plans to employment. That makes sense in industries with a high injury rate, but the US doesn't have that kind of economy anymore.
Be careful in bringing up "open mindedness". If the most compelling thing you can say about your position is that "it is so weird and obtuse that only true open minds will not reject it", I'm not sure you're making a point here...

> But, I see science as an individual's pursuit. I really mean it when I say that science is something one should verify personally.

Sure. But you can't. You literally can't. And since you can't, it means, given this sentence, that you consider all science to be in the realm of belief. This is really sad.

> Whenever you don't do that, you are accepting a story - without testing you cannot know anything, it is all in the realm of belief.
We are running SeaweedFS successfully in production for a few years. We are serving and storing mostly user-uploaded images (around 100TB). It works surprisingly stable and the maintainer is usually responsive when we encounter issues.
This might sound harsh, but Common Lisp fans should stop whining about what everybody else is doing and start making some killer apps to bring back some life into their language. Hearing all about Lisp's past glories is far less convincing than working code. It's just off-putting to hear complaints about what someone else did. As always in free software, the one who puts in the hours gets to call the shots.
As a non american, looking at the amount of video clips from violent protests or people undercover in Antifa (Crowder, Project Veritas), I'm surprised there are still doubts: it's a terrorist organisation by definition.
I'm just saying: a demotivated or lied-to worker resembles slackers pretty closely. I think it's less about personal flaws than we think.
Microsoft should get in on this, then. Because the Java and C# Math classes are virtually identical, aside from method case.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but how is this blocklist supposed to block anything. Take for example I'm a hacker that wants to port scan general dynamics (they were first on that list). Wouldn't all I need to do is remove their entry from the config file?
Agree with all the praise. However, reading him long enough, I started to get annoyed with the blase approach to the Wall Street(tm) transgressions.

I do not think it is a case of pandering to your audience. The following quote (about his time in Dealbreaker) captures it perfectly:

>Part of the problem was that he couldn’t really access a contempt for Wall Street titans. He was of the place, and he found its workings genuinely interesting.

I am in the industry.

It's a missed opportunity, IMHO. It is easy to dismiss some uniformed politician criticizing your industry norms. Much harder when it's coming from someone who clearly understand what is going on.
I wish Julia was much more Lisp/Scheme-like in terms of syntax. If they'd just focused on making a more performant, typed-Scheme (or improving one of the existing ones), that would be much more interesting for me.

I took a dip in to Julia recently, and found it to be a mishmash of Lisp, Haskell, Matlab and Fortran ideas, wrapped in Python-like syntax.

I guess that can be appealing for people coming from those worlds, and for those for whom speed trumps everything else.

For me the loss of a Lispy syntax and the price of working with a relatively immature language wasn't worth it for me. I'd just rather use something with reasonable performance that's more Lispy.
I think ODEs and numerical computing gets mentioned because it was the first area where Julia packages outshined all alternatives. It originated among physicists and mathematicians, so it has a "head start" in these areas.

Julia is a general-purpose programming language, despite having roots in scientific programming. Its performance characteristics with its high latency and runtime memory overhead makes it unsuitable for a number of non-scientific applications. But not all. I think Julia would work excellent as a webserver backend, for example.

I mostly use it for DNA sequence processing, which is not really numerical programming, but more string processing. There it shines. I wouldn't want to make a video game in Julia or fly a plane using Julia software.
I’d love to get into this but I’ve found the results for contracts or part time roles on job pages is quite minimal. Can you recommend how to get started?
I think it's easy to forget how dicey the nuclear treaty situation had become by the time Obama took office; Obama's commitment to a real replacement for START was actually quite important. That said, that arguably is just getting the prize for not being Bush.
How do I know when to release 1.0.0?
I see it as a sign of desesparation to find a viable market of augmented reality goggles.
Do people expect a response from someone (famous or otherwise)? Do they feel entitled to one?

This does remind me a little of Twitter though. People in the replies just begging for a reply or RT from a celeb. People will say ridiculous things just to get even a negative interaction with a celeb.

Why do they care?
Same. In college some of the smartest people I know come from Iran Syria Lebanon and such. Tehran university is good at producing scholars.

Not sure about the average person, but I do get a sense that scholarship is valued.
I like it. What advantage does this have over something like Storj? (aside from the obvious operate differences)
> merit is only one of many reasons that promotions happen. And often not the primary reason.

Related thread from 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618707
What I don't like about AI processed images is that they are not real. I can't go past the fact that I am not looking at the picture as it looks like in reality but somehow smart approximation of the world that is not necessarily true.