skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Generating the training data would be easy. Play audio files through a speaker and record the speaker with a microphone. Then you have the original and the analog recording. Train the machine to reverse the process. Now you can grab high quality audio from any source.

Machine learning isn't this magic thing that can defeat math. The digital to analog process is lossy, and you're asking machine learning to reverse that lossy process. This is very similar to saying "If I train my machine learning model that 10 + 10 = 20, and 3 * 40 = 120, if I ask it x + y = 42 it should be able to tell me x and y". It's obviously impossible, mathematically so.

You could train it to reduce some predictable sources of analog interference, sure, but you absolutely can't "grab high quality audio from any source".

Well, actually, there is an exception! For data you train on, assuming you train the neural net enough, it will eventually encode a fingerprint of input audio and an output of the original digital training data, at which point your neural net has encoded copyrighted training data... effectively it's a form of compression (or maybe just obfuscation) now, and contains copyrighted material. Oops.

Disregarding the fact that this process would be mathematically impossible, let's say you do produce this program. So, does it circumvent copyright law? Does it actually improve anything?

No, it turns out what you have is even more obviously a circumvention device than youtube-dl or anything else. Under the DMCAA, the neural network would be an illegal copyright circumvention device, and all the audio it produces would not be legal copies, and could not legally be owned. I'll reference "what color are your bits"[0], since it's an excellent description of one of the problems here. You're proposing a technical solution, but there is no technical solution here, it's a legal problem. Whether you torrent an album or whether you reverse an analog source through magic, either way the bits are colored with copyright infringement.

[0]: https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
it allows more agile delivery :P
It's not about bigotry, its that foreigners are detached from what is good for the people in the areas they're buying property in. The closer someone is, the more emotionally attached they'll be and the more that other successes (from reducing exploitation of people) will benefit them.
Great experience. Obviously I can't say what non-remote YC is like - and I assume that we did miss out on the interpersonal aspect of YC slightly.

But honestly, kudos to the YC team. At a time when remote working was not as established as it is today - things were still awkward as people were not necessarily used to socialising over Zoom - the array of tools which have been developed to make remote working easier during the pandemic were not as refined and so on - the YC team delivered a really excellent experience which was very fulfilling.

We had loads of time with the partners - we met a bunch of other founders (even became friends with some). Every event that I attended was executed perfectly, with almost 0 scheduling or connection issues.

The only reality (not much could be done about this) which was a bit awkward is juggling time zones. We are based in Europe so all events were deep in the PM.

(Also not paying an exorbitant rent for 3 months definitely helped our runway)
I'm young and healthy myself, and feel the temptation of that mindset on a base emotional level.

But I'm also smart enough to realize that someday I might be 62 and benefit from living in a society that doesn't give up on addressing a pandemic that can be mitigated by something as simple as wearing masks. Should ideology not get in the way.

I could have 20 quality years of life ahead of me before attempts to keep me alive become needlessly heroic.
Joe Knows Electronics – The End of an Amazon Era
The point stands that political ads on broadcast stations are regulated and those on social media are not. That is problematic. However, FCC regs seem to allow stations to charge different prices based on the “class” of the placement. Not sure what the right social media equivalent of “class” would be. Seems reasonable that it might include targeting and campaign objectives. Which we don’t know in this case. So seems a stretch to imply that FB is charging a higher price for equivalent ads. They may be, but IMO the authors don’t have sufficient evidence based on what they could access.

> A candidate shall be charged no more per unit than the station charges its most favored commercial advertisers for the same classes and amounts of time for the same periods.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/statutes-and-rules-candidat...
I'm going to miss NewPipe.
Ask HN: Does Google penalize your page rank for not using Google Analytics?
This may be completely anecdotal, but I nixed GA and other Google products from my business recently (and personal life), in favor of supporting privacy-focused small business alternatives, and I've noticed that my Google page rank and overall page view counts from Google have fallen by about 2/3. A lot of keywords I was #1 for, I've now fallen down considerably, even onto the next page, or dropped entirely. Looking at the data, the change happens a couple days after I removed the Google products, after running the alternatives side-by-side for a couple weeks. Am I crazy or is this actually a thing?
What Canadian tax laws are they violating?
Exactly. A friend went through a bad lawsuit because his business partner did this very thing on their website (my friend didn’t know the business partner was playing that game with a competitor and unfortunately this incident led to their business shutting down).
It's very helpful to know you can negotiate with tech transfer offices. I always assumed their (not-go-great) terms were non-negotiable and was super dissuaded against starting something while a researcher at a university.
Hi folks! For Halloween we thought it'd be a fun idea to share some true life "horror stories" from the world of big data. I would love to have you share your own high tech real-life horrors.
Could this be related to repealing ACA in some way? Would information stolen help one side or the other? Or is there no connection? & How would one know anyway?

Non-American (but not ignorant of USA) wondering why this is happening now.
> On the other end of the spectrum there are countries such as Poland with no initial first wave back in March. But it seems you can only go for so long before the virus turns up.

Incidentally, the Marshall Islands just had their first case (and from my arcgis dashboard it looks like a second one). If one of the world's most remote islands with a population of under 60,000 can get it within a year, there's little hope to keep it out of anywhere.

How long until tribes like the Sentinelese [1] get coronavirus? (Thankfully many of these tribes are very hostile and it's illegal to even attempt to make contact precisely because of previous transmission during contact)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
I went to Whole foods last night to buy some vodka sauce as it was going to be faster that making it myself due to time constraints.

The container is about half the size ( 10 ounces ) now for the same price. The cashier even noticed it and said something to me.

Modern monetary theory still does not solve this problem.
I was a scrabble player. This is really long ago, I feel like the app was initially OK (or maybe I was playing an illegal version?), was upgraded and was absolutely terrible. You can only crash once or twice and people just give up.

How do you throw a property like this away is crazy - this should have been 500K - 1M daily users 10 years ago, and 5M daily users today minimum.
Do you honestly think people are focusing more on exploration than other things? We already do both.
> Many of the students in it for the money were still very smart and motivated and interesting to talk to.

It is because people are not one dimensional. Most people have talent for range of professions, they are not predisposed to like exactly one of them. Also, most good students will end up liking whatever they picked provided it is within range of things they are not completely failing at.

Learning something often makes one like it more, even if one was initially ambivalent. Plus, once you know a bit more about field, you can find sub-field you are actually good at and find fun. As in, various tech jobs require slightly different aptitudes - some require more patience, some more abstract thinking, others memory. But, you dont know until you try.
Yes, but normally you have some degree of choice. You can choose to rent or buy depending on your circumstances and needs. It's bad enough enough that the degree of 'choice' is very limited for a lot of people, but it is clear that the political direction of tax law, corporate law, is toward the direction of establishment of a permanent aristocracy that owns everything and everyone else is completely dependent on them.
Hey, if it's just fast food why does the market even care who prepares it? How long till these food "delivery" services just capture all the addressable market masquerading as a bunch of uninformed, non-participating restaurants and make the food they deliver? Why are they leaving all this extra margin on the table?
Are there any docs/issues/comments anywhere with information on how to self-host this?
I'm still using LiveView in a lot of the other parts of the app - places like signup/signin where the having the form validation seamlessly done server side using changsets is very, very nice. I'm also using in places where I would normally have to expose an api endpoint for CRUD and instead I'm using events and handling it in the LiveView. Again, very nice.
I still think that the changing temperature was likely a factor but perhaps just a small one. It certainly would have got harder to eek out an existence on the island.

As you say though a bigger factor was Portuguese traders gaining access to African elephant ivory which was easier and cheaper to procure than walrus ivory which was the cash crop of the Greenland settlement.
Laundering assumes liquidity when the money is clean, otherwise it’s not laundering.

Funnily 10c on the dollar might be worth doing if there are no other laundering methods available. It’s like investing - laundered money seeks the beat returns. And in the case of Vancouver the assets purchased with laundered money actually went up YOY. Seems like a good place to launder, no?
Of course all this shit happens the same week I bought my first NAS.
The Complete CSS Grid Tutorial
Hah! I worked at a startup that deployed several E450's (and their smaller cousins, the E250's.) It's amazing how far we've come with hardware.
Not the OP, but I suppose one can read their comment as referring to the original colonizers who crossed the Bering strait, not those who crossed the Atlantic.
Firstly, i graduated in 2001, so i've been through two down-cycles. Of course there are no worries now but you just need to look back and realize that $250k salaries can disappear, sometimes permanently. I remember how awesome it was in 2000, 2001, and then in 2002 and 2003 my friends were suddenly leaving CS to become mortgage brokers. I was blase about my liabilities in 2000, 2001. Not the case in 2002 or 2003. Blase again in 2006 and 2007. Terrified in 2009 (not about student loans but just liabilities in general - COBRA, property taxes, supporting family, etc.)

A large number of $250k+ salaries, on Wall St, for example permanently disappeared with the move to open source, shared servicing, etc. Former bosses are "retired" or "consultants" or insurance brokers.

Finally, sure, having a spouse who also earns $250k is great, but does everyone have that? Should CS grads only marry other CS grads? What if you wall in love with someone who does HR (which is my case)?

Also note, that stretching for a $2M home with two $250k tech salaries is pretty risky

0. What happens when you turn 35 or 40 and now face age discrimination?

1. Both your salaries are highly industry correlated

2. Both your salaries are regionally correlated

3. If either of you lose a job, you're screwed with a mega-loan.

4. What happens when kids come and you cant work (as easily, or at all?)
This is how my sale went a few years ago in Toronto. One contractor, one couple with their realtor, and one realtor on the phone representing a remote client.

Everyone put in a bid. The realtor representing the remote client gave an offer 200k over asking. Never saw the buyer. Drove by months later and still no one living there. Neighbor told me a young Chinese couple showed up a few weeks after purchase, got out and looked at the property for a minute and drove off, didn't even go in. Property was still empty 2 years later.

Extended family remember sells house in Toronto (Bloor West Village). House is at least 100 years old and in rough shape. Gets an offer for 1.4 million (about 150k over asking) as is from a 20 something year old Chinese University of Toronto Student. The student tells family member not to be alarmed if the name on the contract is different from hers. House was rented out a few months after sale.

I have dealt with many Chinese factories in a previous life. Many were State factories and everyone from the sales person to the accountant to the factory floor supervisor is on the take. They skim and over time accumulate some serious money. This money leaves the country in capital outflows into the real estate market in Canada. The thinking is I don't care if it makes any money as an investment, I just got to get it out of China so the CCP can't take it away. Banks are no good, so lets just put it in real estate. Who cares if we lose 200k on property, better than losing it all to the Chinese Gov.

Another interesting story, real estate agent representing me tells me this story. He's on the phone with an agent representing a Chinese client who wants to buy a Condo in a new development in downtown Toronto. Realtor says client will take one. My Realtor asks him what kind of unit? Chinese buyers tells him not a unit but the whole 8th floor.

The average price of a house in Toronto will be in the millions in the next decade. Anyone earning less than 200-300 k a year will not be able to afford one, unless they have a windfall inheritance. Now with a possible Hong Kong exodus, there is no limit to the insanity. Young Canadians in major cities are screwed. Renters for life.
I recall I left Mozilla before the same-sex marriage fight, but I'm familiar with it.

Just as I wouldn't call Brendan or gerv a psycho-sadist, I also wouldn't call the people who called for their resignations names, nor group them all together.

I think name-calling, especially of a large group which shares only one thing in common is antithetical to building inclusive human communities. Literally we're excluding people and calling them Stasi members because we disagree with them.

If you want people to be kind to each other, and if you're against cancelling people for their opinions, it's got to start somewhere.

I also want to speak to your two other examples, Linus and RMS.

WRT Linus, I personally know many talented people who wouldn't touch Linux development specifically because of him. It's cool that Linus has made your life better. He's also made a lot of people's lives worse. Where's their due process?

WRT RMS, I take issue with the idea that he was not given due process. In fact he was allowed to stay for years, despite harassing women and acting inappropriately in his position. The Epstein email was a last straw. But also: What makes you think he wasn't given due process? He says he was "pressured" by MIT and resigned. Do you think he couldn't have fought it? It sounds like he decided not to fight it. That's different than not being given due process.

Again with RMS, it's clear that his behavior was deeply upsetting to a lot of people. https://selamjie.medium.com/remove-richard-stallman-appendix... Where's their due process? How do they factor into your calculus of who's worthy of our compassion?
I agree with you, but at least the advice gives an idea of how some others approach finding work at that age.

It comes with the implication that it's worth aiming towards similar, if you think you could, because it's actually working for some people.

I.e. by being more aware of network-building, being a bit less afraid to mention your availability when getting to know people, having in the back of your mind that it's actually good for your future prospects if you're helpful and pleasant to people, being willing to play the slow "keep in touch" game, and the LinkedIn game, and maybe appreciate that it's not entirely social BS, it's actually kinda useful in the big scheme of things.

That doesn't solve the problem for people who are lonely and struggling, but it gives an idea of a useful direction to start building in, from knowing it's working for some people.

I will add a tiny bit of advice: It's really ok if you don't already have decades of networking and colleagues like some appear to. You're not at a permanent disadvantage.

If you have few friends and no colleagues, it will take a while but that while is measured in months and low years, and like anything, cultivating freelancing/consulting connections is a skill you can get much better at with practice. Get used to reaching out, like for example write to some of the "freelancer wanted" posts on HN, and write to people at companies who post something interesting, including C?Os and so on. That's kinda fun, because some of the people you end up talking with actually really enjoy human connections and are interesting people, and you are building their network too. To them, you are valuable, even if they don't know why yet. Some of them know this and are happy for the contact.
I continuously power my entire workstation with a GoalZero setup of the Boulder 200 solar case + the Yeti 400 Wh lithium power station. Super easy setup, one cord between the station I have in my office and the solar case setup in the backyard. This setup can be had for much cheaper if you DIY a bit more, but I’ve personally found GoalZero to be very convenient, zero hassle - highly recommend.
I am a big fan of jamstack. For a lot of my client's use cases it allows me to save them a lot of money and headaches while delivering a better product, especially with a headless CMS like Netlify CMS
What are the author's actual complaints about the C++ community? Maybe I am lacking context, but it's extremely difficult for me to understand it by reading this blog post.
Ask HN: Have you go through a divorce
Throw away for obvious reason.

I married 8 years. have 2 kids. my marry life is so stressful. I tried a lot but we always get into argument.

Now, I want to divorce. But I look around, and in tech it seems no one are divorced :(.

Do divorce make a failure in life, especially among tech geek?
For the moment, sure, but i think the issue here is that people do not realise the power of our planet and rush to conclusions such as "this planet is doomed in X years" etc. I would make the guess the planet itself can sustain human life at least for hundreds if not thousands of years more from now on.

Of course, this is assuming people become more & remain responsible.But if history taught us anything i would also say that looks to be happening. Lastly, ironically the people who are the most alarmists about climate change are the ones who don't abide by their own words(See hollywood for example).This doesn't mean should postpone efficiency on earth & the growth of life(which sadly has happened a lot in modern history).
Sounds like an open-and-shut case, but GH has the backing of SV lawyers so chances are it'll drag on for 3 years or end in settlement.
Poorly managing your business seems less a sign of "too many brains" than "not enough management."

Consider also that a) most businesses fail b) many successful engineering companies were founded and/or staffed by professors, Ph.D. graduates, and Ph.D. students from Stanford and elsewhere, d) intel didn't do so great with VLIW (itanium) or low power/thermal (Atom lost to ARM - and intel seems to have squandered StrongARM/XSCale) either, e) intel probably had many more Ph.D.'s than Transmeta did, and they still hire tons of them.

Be that as it may, it's sad Transmeta died and its IP was sold to Intellectual Ventures, a company that has invented interesting things but also seems to make most of its money from lawsuits.
OMG Fox news had em! Tucker Carlson had the smoking gun documents that would have blown up the election but his producer sent them FHL and they magically disappeared!

Ohh, so close! If only done I’ve had invented a machine to copy documents with, they could have made copies and still had them!
what are some of your favorite episodes?
or this:

https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/release...
Wordfeud created by Håkon Bertheussen; he's a multimillionaire from this game, so probably safe from EA for now

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordfeud
> You’re attacking the first sale doctrine here though if you think about it!

I can sell a Mac but can't hold myself out as a representative of Apple.
Building GitHub: Introduction
> Google does hire SRE SEs and I interviewed many

For those who aren't familiar with the google acroynm soup: SE here means systems engineer not software engineer(SWE).
The TA thing is pretty normal. I'm a TA this term as my new funding is being being worked out because it takes 6 months to do. So I'm TAing a class on assembly which I have no experience and don't even have a CS undergraduate degree. It sucks for us too as a have one class that expects 30hrs/wk of work (+another class), my research (what I want to spend all my time on), and TAing takes 18hrs/wk.

You're only going to get a good TA when that professor is teaching a class that's their focus and has a grad student that has that fucus AND that student isn't on other research funding. The system is far from optional for either undergrads or grads. Believe me, I'm not happy either
Has this not always been the case with pretty much all digital media purchases? Books, music, films, tv etc. It’s always a license you’re buying. Not saying this is good or bad, but at this point I think we’ve been over this many many times and it should not be a surprise to anybody who has been remotely paying attention.
Appreciate your support, Eric!
"as above so below"
The Tech Antitrust Problem No One Is Talking About
They literally carried a briefcase of money into the closing without a banking intermediary?
> The basic phone plan is about $30

Yeah, in France a basic SIM phone plan with 50mb data is something thrown in for free as a part of their internet/cable/DVRs which is $30/mo (incl tax) for the first year and then $65, but it’s so competitive that you just need to call in or switch.

Text/calls are increasingly over data. You’re getting terrible value for $30 for what is 100mb.

https://www.free.fr/freebox/offres-freebox-mobile/
Love (3). The data is only an abstracted sliver of the reality. Pursue reality first, then go to the data!
applies even more in 2020!!!
The community wanted the moderators to get on the same page. They were also tired of discussions turning into arguments like whether insulting things by calling them gay insulted gay people.

We didn't end up with books.
I mean isn't it the same with developers ?

If you're competent you have offers left and right and can command a very good salary. If you're out of a diploma mill with just the curriculum under your belt you're basically useless.
They made off with at least $3 billion in profit, are responsible for (at minimum) the deaths of thousands of Americans, and will ride off into the sunset with their billions.

The DOJ delivered a slap on the wrist just in time for the election so that they could claim a win on the opioid crisis.

I don't blame people in this thread for having zero confidence whatsoever in the "justice" system.
Context on Software Transactional Memory in Ruby