skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I find I don't think of hackernews as a community anymore, haven't in a long time. To me what I read here is 50-75% of intentional argumentation and spreading of what's essentially FUD by people who are drawn here by the sites popularity, and who are just a likely to be on a payroll or otherwise promoting an agenda.

It's the small percentage of genuine people with reasonable, coherent things to say that keep me coming back. It's a trope, but the quality of discourse has declined markedly in recent years (imo).
But it's tiny compared to propaganda by domestic actors.

All foreign propaganda is peddled by domestic actors. Otherwise, it wouldn't be effective.
I could bet money that the opposite of what you're saying is true. But I think that illustrates a much bigger problem. The society is so polarized, that we can't even agree on basic facts. Something went terribly wrong with the internet and the media and now we're living in two completely different realities, that are fundamentally incompatible with one another.
> For example, is it reasonable that I can buy car insurance that covers me if I cause an accident?

Reasonable? I’d describe it as mandatory, and not even a question in no-fault jurisdictions. It doesn’t exempt you from criminal charges if you did it, say, intentionally.
Yep. There's so many global replace situations where the logic completely breaks.
The UI seems quite slow. When changing tabs or scrolling there is a noticeable delay. Feels about 60% like a native app.

I noticed someone in this thread say its built with Flutter which is cool to see! Hopefully it can compete with native sometime soon.. in the meantime this isn't there yet

Edit: Testing on iOS right now
The point of Godel’s idea, is that he proved “ Lisivka's numbers", has a formula that can’t be proven.

Try going through the essay, and point out where the “incorrect” numbers were formed. You may be surprised to find that all statements were “correct” in the definition you are thinking of. The mathematical term is “primitive recursive” and “well-formed”
I agree with you. The “gold” rush toward ML does not expand the total wallet size outside of a few niche markets.
I spent thousands of hours in front of my Vic20, C64, etc. Back then the platforms really encouraged creativity. Now I feel every single platform just encourages consumerism.
Everyone I personally know who _made bank_ from iPhone and Android apps over the past 11 years did so by being paid to make the apps for other people who thought they had a great idea for an app...

"In a gold rush, you don't get rich by digging for gold - you get rich by selling shovels"
Lemons Problem Definition
Start a group, tap "Split a bill", I've been using it for my Fi group for a bit now.
Do you have some before-and-after code that you can share?

I've seen two other efforts in that general direction:

* "Let's Remove Quaternions from Every 3D Engine"[0], which was underwhelming: let's ask other people to rename existing code for no practical benefit?

* "Klein"[1], a projective geometric algebra library that is amazingly nice to use, and claims to be very fast.

[0]: https://marctenbosch.com/quaternions/

[1]: https://www.jeremyong.com/klein/
> So, I'm somehow developing a pro-Apple bias these days

Everytime this happens to me, I remind myself to visit their accessories store on the Apple website.

As an example, the new magsafe seems like a clear way to extract more money.

The magsafe charger doesn't have a removable cable and it is a very thin cable which is likely to break after minimal usage.

The iPad's keyboard costs as much as an entry level Ryzen laptop.

Non-upgradable everything so you pay for future-proofing upfront.
Sounds like Plex is their competition to the likes of Fintech 'challenger' banks in the UK (Monzo/Starling). Wonder if they'll bring it over here.
Google to Offer Checking Accounts With Banks in Pay App Revamp
I will give an example that I am facing right now.

I am working on a open source payment gateway for crypto and one of the things that I am providing is a javascript library for those that want to provide a Stripe Checkout-like experience on their sites.

I started doing this in vue.js, which has the idea of the components where you define the html, code and style together in one single file.

My problem is, I want the user to be able to have the styling of the checkout widget similar to their own website. So I want to have my HTML as simple as possible and let them provide the CSS. I could even try to help and provide some different ready-made CSS (to be used directly) or SASS files (if they want to customize) but I've given up on trying to do that inside of vue component definitions.
> My impression is that hardware has become a lot more capable even relative to its tasks.

Indeed. The margins are bonkers high. As an example, the amount of ram that you can stuff into a physical machine has at least doubled in the last five years, but the price of the average virtual machine has not.
The stories behind the 4-Hour Workweek
I'm quite interested in what you suppose the word "man" means? I'm serious.
Why the fixation on revenue over margin and income?
$100 seems like basically zero for an app developer. Half an hour's billable work. Seems completely insignificant?
In my opinion, it's an issue with the way it's being portrayed - not mentioning consoles, smart TVs, etc. can lead a reader to think that Apple is alone in these practices, when mentioning the other devices might provide more perspective.
> General computing platforms should be protected from such predatory practices by manufacturers through strong government regulations.

I find it much more plausible that any regulations will end up entrenching market incumbents and closing off potential avenues for disruption. In other words, this can only make the situation worse or keep it somewhat the same, it won't make it better.

> Stifling innovation isn't good for anyone, and as more and more people become software developers, this really just hurts the small guys ... Indie developers need protection from monopolistic and anti-competitive practices from larger players in the market through strong government regulation, not a discount on their first $1m in sales.

Indie developers aren't the only stakeholders here, platform users are as well and any regulation will need to take into account their needs and interests. In purely numerical terms, the latter group outnumbers the indies by 100x or more. Realistically speaking, whose needs will any regulation give more precedence?

The top concern amongst tech users today is security, whether its security of personal data or a more diffuse sense of security concerning the integrity of public discourse conducted online. It's very hard to imagine any kind of regulation protecting indie devs without also introducing regulations on the distribution process itself, in order to protect end users in these two areas. The only thing harder to disrupt than a commercially dominant player is a commercially dominant player ensconced in a complex regulatory regime. This is not a reality that indie developers or myself (personally), particularly like, but it's the reality we have. Ignoring it won't make it go away.
I think probably my proximity point is less clear than it could be. The “proximity” I find appealing is that a component is either a function of data (“props”) returning the rendered structure, or an encapsulation of props and state returning the same... and in those cases (especially with static type checking) makes it easy to understand and navigate data flow, in a way that a template separate from its data types usually isn’t. Of course it’s good to separate the business logic from the rendering, but that still produces a more clear understanding of the data flow.
I just want to be able to run and distribute my own apps. It’s ridiculous and just plain criminal that this is not possible. Apple does not own my device and does not get to dictate what I do with it. Phones are so locked down that they are a real threat to personal computing and software engineering. The day where apple stops indies from publishing apps is near.
Essays by definition are to clarify one's own thinking. Why does anyone share them with others? Because we think they contribute something of value to others.
You hit the nail on the head there. And it's not just K-12 math, either. I don't know about Australia, but I can see what it's like here in the US.

I moved here 7 years ago, and my son has gone through a public elementary school and is currently in the last year of a public middle school. If it was just one year or just one teacher or even just one school (or one district), I could write it off to bad luck. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that the whole system is abysmal.
Note: I didn't say "they love it so much that they follow it religiously and never break from it". :)

While I don't disagree with your points, there is still ground to be made here.

1) If designers had a "tailwind linter" in their design tool from the start, I believe that they would be encouraged to use it from the start and would start tweaking their designs from the get go to look just as good with it.

The same principle applies to code linters. There are exceptions where developers can disable a linter for specific pieces of code, but having it there encourages the code to be "constrained" in a consistent way.

2) Just because a design has a "13px" padding doesn't imply the designer thought "13 pixels is the best value here and 12 pixels is simply unacceptable". A design linter would help with the "expressiveness" of the design and when things truly are "exceptional" cases.

Note 2: I'm obviously recommending a technical solution to the problem very early in the design process, but the way I solve it now is by discussing it with the designer over a zoom call. I'll show them the design and say "does this look good? I deviated a bit, is that ok?" It almost always is, which is a win for everyone.
Of my past 10 posts on HN 6 have been flagged and removed by users. Of those, many made it to the front page with 10+ votes.

I contacted Dang and he was clear it was users censoring it, further that some users were also "vouching" for my posts. It's to the point, people don't want to know.

I feel I'm fairly even handed in my discussion. Here's a couple of my posts (who knows if I'll get flagged):

- Public Safety Announcement: The 2020 Election is Not Over (https://austingwalters.com/public-safety-announcement-the-20...)

- Firearms by the Numbers (https://austingwalters.com/firearms-by-the-numbers/)

- Update: The Dead Vote In Michigan – Voter Database Being Modified (https://austingwalters.com/update-the-dead-vote-in-michigan/)

NOTE: I make no real claims in there, simply state the counter argument to the main media narrative. I have a blog post itself there.

I'm SERIOUSLY concerned about the fact both sides of the political spectrum have no idea what the other is claiming. I'm desperately trying to get my social circle to understand.
To save others the effort the two books are:

Linear and Geometric Algebra (October 2020 printing) 978-1453854938 $30 new @Amazon

Vector and Geometric Calculus (also Oct. 2020 prining) 978-1480132450 $35 new @Amazon

Affordable, surprisingly.
We should, but we are not doing that. We have been cleverly manipulated to care more about what a soon-to-be-ex president said or didnt say or how many genders actually exist. You can protest against everything except those things that are against the interests of the rich and powerful. The protests are channel to serve their interests, not the other way around. Dont believe me? Just a sample: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...
> The goal should be to make Apple's app store model against public policy.

Policy should not be written to attack an individual company that for some reason you've got a beef with.
le epic reddit comment am i right ;)
With all the horror stories I've heard of them shutting down peoples' accounts with no explanation, recourse, or way to recover their contents, I have to agree.
iOverlander is a proprietary app. Its database is not freely available outside the app, and fairly little of the information added there makes its way into OpenStreetMap. Also, iOverlander requires Google Play Services, so it isn’t usable on Android distributions that are more privacy-respecting, like LineageOS.

As a cycle tourer myself, I agree that iOverlander’s wealth of detail on certain routes is useful, but I really hope it gets superseded by a more libre alternative.
About a sixth of the global population lives in China, so it only makes sense that they'd come up regularly in discussions of global trends.
How to Know When Saying “No” to That Big Customer Is the Right Decision
Luckily we have Biden in office in the USA and he is going to bring back free speech to the internet.
Does anyone have any thoughts on Tailwind UI?
> People, however, generally want a society that balances liberty and stability.

Stability is certainly a worthwhile goal, to a point—in the end nothing alive can be completely stable—but there is no reason why it must come at the expense of liberty. The main issue is negative externalities, which are already addressed by the Non-Aggression Principle; i.e. your liberty applies to yourself and your own property, not other people or their property, unless they consent. Libertarian society is not a free-for-all. What little scope for petty conflict remains can be addressed adequately through social means rather than force.

> In a well-functioning democracy, the people are the government so the idea of a governmental monopoly is diluted somewhat.

Even in the ideal model, "the people are the government" in approximately the same way that individuals cells are a human being. Part of a vast collective, in other words, with no individual influence or control, retained only to serve the collective, and ultimately disposable. That's fine for cells in the body but a horrible way to think about sentient beings.
We need digital consumer rights laws. Badly.
I agree that it's possible they weren't being malicious. The part that gets me is that they didn't decide to instead allow folks to set a max battery charge to extend their battery life. It's pretty widely accepted that charging a battery to 100% over-and-over will cause battery degradation.

It seems fair to me that decisions that are hidden from consumers and obviously degrade the consumer's experience should negatively affect a company (and more than just the loss of goodwill).
I believe there are Matrix/Element - WhatsApp bridges. They require some setup and its not for everyone but for me it would be an option.
I feel like the $100 is just supposed to be a token amount to provide a speed bump for tire-kickers, spammers, etc.

If they were serious about it as a revenue stream, it would make sense to go with something more like the UE4 model, where it's free up until the point where you're a big fish, and then a more aggressive fixed fee kicks in.
It’s funny how, as someone who builds cloud services, I thought your statement was going in the opposite direction until the end. $100 will buy a _ton_ of hosting that is more than adequate to run most indie app downloads for a year.

The counterpoint to my claim which you stated is that the App Store also provides reach and marketing, which are quite pricey. I agree that they are expensive services, but can you even name one example in the past 5 years (literally about half the life of the ecosystem) where the App Store promoted an indie developer into success?
I agree that all the factors you've listed are in play, but they are far from the only ones involved in decision making. Perhaps this is a regional thing, I've never experienced (and have no wish to) what the US EMR market is like.

Some complaints/feedback I did receive from doctors and clinic admins while working for an EMR vendor:

1. Your system is buggy/unintuitive and we hate using it.

2. We're not upgrading or moving to your new system because of 1).

3. We're moving to competitor X because they have Y feature.

4. [conversely] We came from competitor X because their EMR is slow/buggy/lacks features.

5. We signed up because the docs/office assistants liked [hero feature] in the sales demo.

So yes, 0 mentions of the word "software". However, all of these are directly related to the software itself. There's a reason flashy new companies can swoop in and steal some market share (at least where I am). Even more importantly, there are many tech-related reasons why some companies start floundering and drop out of the market:

- bad foundations (most EMRs were created by doctors with limited dev experience)

- rampant tech debt driven by feature-driven development

- lack of knowledge about testing/CI

These are not theoretical problems. More than once, we incurred regulatory fines and SLA penalties in excess of the "cost of doing business" threshold. After a pretty major patient data screw-up, upper management even relented and gave the dev(ops) team time/money to clean up their act. Regulatory and bureaucratic inertia may insulate health IT companies from software engineering issues, but there's a limit to everything and they can sure as hell bleed.
Thanks for the link, I'll go take a look. I'm pretty sure Oberon addressed some of the pitfalls cited there, if only so Wirth could write an OS with it. Not every language is OS worthy, after all.
I was release coordinator 5-7 years ago for an EMR software (DIPS) in Norway, to one of the bigger hospitals (Kalnes).
It was said that there was a unwritten policy that they never use open source software, the only exception was for the ERP database running on Linux. There was more than 2000 systems in that portfolio to various hospitals under the same policy.

After checking with other employees if found the reason; they had to make sure the supplier did not have to many levels of sub contractors, and had to be close to the core development.
So not open source in it self, but open source was seen as a big red flag.
Presumably someone at Sony decided they wanted to emphasize the PS5 and that keeping the lights on was too expensive, but shutting down PS3/PSVita/PSP games and PS Classics on the PSN Store is still disappointing.
> I guess all those 8 and 16 bit computers I worked with weren't general purpose either.

It's absolutely not what I mean by general purpose. Please read the reference.
Do you know how many laws are on the books?
No one else does either.
https://www.quora.com/How-many-federal-laws-are-there-in-the...

Then there's all the law enforcement agencies, the FBI, CIA, TSA, DoD, NSA, and more.

Then there's the side effect of laws, how many problems are we dealing with presently from supposedly good gov't laws from years or decades ago? A whole lot.

Social engineering via laws and judges is a simple minded solution and should never be considered the best or final solution.
Three Things You Didn't Know Could Be So Easy on Your Mac
By that logic T2 is also "just an improved TPM/TPM successor".

It's not hard to infer the direction that MS is going with this concept.
> You make a conscious decision not to use the product

I feel like I've heard this before, re: alcoholism, obesity, etc... It's true that if you just decide to stop the behavior you don't like, you're cured. But it is so far from easy that it's a lifelong journey for many people.

Your job is not just to compete for a limited number of zombies, but to keep as many people that actually do care from climbing out of the hole. People are not binary between zombie/not zombie, they're on a spectrum, and I think it's naive to think that anyone with the slightest desire to not use your product can just close it & quit.
Apologies for a response riddled with typos.
Remember what it said?
This is true, but unrelated.

We're talking about Dropbox scale.

At that scale you can (nee should) hire all the specialists you need.
You should probably reach out to support to be sure.
I have spent a bit of time thinking about this, and can't really come up with a way of calculating a 'justifiable cut' for Apple.

Would it be their cost per average app? Should it be a fixed fee with a variable rate on top? Should they license access like the videogame companies used to? Won't these smaller profits further incentivize Apple to offer competing apps in every category, and dis-incentivize quality control of third party apps?

My conclusion (so far) is that it's best to let each platform developer choose their business model, and see which one works best. Business models can compete along with hardware and software.
Jason Calacanis invites solo founders to contact him if they're making 20k MRR
This is a little silly. ML is very good at building things much more general than rules.

As a person that’s built and deployed a lot of ML solutions in a related space and brought a product to market meant to help others do the same, we consistently ran into two main camps: 1) people that had a long history of rule writing and were unreasonably closed off to the idea that ML could help and 2) people that thought ML was magic and could do things it most certainly cannot.

I understand the sentiment of being skeptical in a world of outrageous claims from “fake it till you make it” startups, but the idea that most ML is not better than rule based systems is just wrong. You need both and they solve slightly different problems.
> Apple does not get to dictate what I do with it

Sounds like they already do...
Material UI still fulfills all those points, unless I'm missing something:

- Just declare the styles you want adjacent to the component

- If you're repeating styles, make a component

- material-ui has a design system / theme that you're encouraged to use

Like Tailwind has `class="mb-6"`, mui has `<Box mb={6} />`.
I’d strongly encourage looking at Next.js (with TypeScript if you prefer or have an open mind to it; TS support is first class now with no additional action needed than using .ts/.tsx files). It’s really great out of the box for many common web needs, has sensible defaults but easily configurable using other common tools, provides SSR/SSG/many optimizations out of the box, and a great track record of continual improvement.
From the HN guidelines:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

I think these examples you cited are pretty clearly off topic
It’s all fun and games to coup whoever you want.

Until the chickens come home to roost. And you find your own people rioting, and your society begins to melt down from all its inequality.
And Daniel Andrews. My condolences.
Population size and distrust of authority have a fairly linear relationship. The bigger we get, the further from power and decision-making we feel we are. This makes a great case for no censorship.

Of course, the gremlins created by the above scenario makes a great case for some censorship.

Until authority can be coaxed into becoming more transparent and, thereby, creating trust, we will keep having this conversation.
The answer to your question is the actual confusion regarding "separation of concerns" in HTML and CSS. You can do what you've described with Tailwind: check out @apply. But now you still have the issue of coming up with CSS class names. Because CSS on its own doesn't do anything. There is a high dependency between HTML and CSS and it'a up to you to choose the dependency direction. HTML and CSS are not concerns, they're technologies. Components are a better way for separating concerns. That's why CSS-in-JS is so popular and why we're combining pseudo-HTML and JavaScript in React.