skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Literalism - if we follow Apple's logic then they're not giving us an apple when buying their products.
10 Ways to Start 2021 on the Right Track
There are plenty of anaesthetics where we don’t have very good guesses as to what makes them tick, though. Halocarbon based ones being especially cool.
You've never seen the energy drink shelf? "Cocaine" gained notoriety specifically for this.

Go to any gas station to see similarly edgy boner pills, designer drugs like bath salts, things that are genuinely more dangerous.

The dev makes a good point that there are much more explicit iOS games and it's odd for Apple to single him out.
I'm not sure.

I know a lot of seemingly "talented" people. How do they pick up a new instrument in 2-3 months? Or be able to balance on a skateboard after just a little while? Or get kills better than me with only 200 CS GO hours clocked?

The answer is always that they spent a lot of focused time earlier in life, or that they spend a lot of time that I wasn't aware of -- like I find out that they have 2500 hours in CS:S on another account... yeah that makes a lot more sense.

I don't believe innate talent exists. Other than that some people are mentally quicker, or have faster reflexes, or are physically more capable -- "general" things. But talent exists only from both hard work and time, which for many things can start at age 2 or 3.
"You Wouldn't Get It"
My grocery store sells an energy drink called liquid death.
If they didn’t vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard might get in.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very...
I think the conversation about moderates has changed a lot in this election. I think this also is relevant to our "no nuance" conversation. Defining a moderate now is relatively difficult and I think more people think they are moderates than actually are. Are we talking about moderates from a fairly objective viewpoint? American standpoint? That of the state? Are we talking about the moderates that the DNC describes and are the Joe voters? Are we talking about the moderates that the RNC describes? The moderates of today or the moderates when that skit was written? While I agree with you of the loophole of moderates since many self-label as moderate (even if they aren't by any reasonable metric) as a means of "feeling good" and having moral superiority. That kind is the same pitfall as the extremists, but I think just lumping all moderates into that bin (and subsequently having a total of 3 extremist bins) isn't helpful and makes it difficult to heal the divide that we have.

That said I'll admit I have a bias that I'm against parties since I feel they make things too simple for a well functioning democracy but you've also probably seem my passionate comments about voting.
It’s a weak argument because Tim Cook has personally testified in from of Congress that the rules are not selectively enforced.
It‘s not a book, but Bret Deveraux‘ history blog is so comprehensive I‘ve probably read several books‘ worth of pages on it: https://acoup.blog/ Also, it pointed me to a number of the „real“ books I read this year.

Aside from that, the book that I enjoyed the most was probably Chernow‘s „Washington“.
I agree that it’s not abusive but “blood money” and “drug lord” is pretty absurd language to use. I’m sure it’s the result of passion but it undermines the point rather than aids it.
4M Computers Compromised: Zoom’s Security Flaw Explained [YT]
The Gratification Migration
When it comes to scientific discoveries, "how" and "why" are essentially the same question. Asking "why" usually means "for what purpose" -- and given that "purpose" is not something well defined scientifically, we tend to take it to mean "by what means" instead.
Can you elaborate? At least here in the USA the government responses have been so spotty, inconsistently enforced, and half hearted that we seem to have the worst of all outcomes. (Elevated death rate, recurring lockdowns, ongoing community spread of the virus.)
If something goes catastrophically wrong at 1am, caused by some unforeseen bug in the code, who fixes it? Who diagnoses that an issue flooding the logs is not an issue with your software but something else down the line?

I think it makes sense to have an on-call rota. Some people do it for a week or so. Cycle it through the team.

There needs to be someone knowledgeable to call in case of issues.
There we go again :-)

It's called plausible deniability. They're not stupid.

Why would we ever trust the messaging of a company that:

1. Has removed the headphone jack claiming there wasn't enough room inside the phone for it.

2. While "accidentally" deciding to sell a $150 pair of wireless earbuds just as they removed the previous accessory.

3. Now has removed the charger, claiming that they want to reduce pollution.

4. While almost all their equipment is not reparable (which is much, much worse for the environment!).

5. And also "accidentally" introducing a $40 wireless charger just as they removed the old charger from the box.

Repeat ad nauseam.

Which one is more likely?

1. They had an internal meeting where they had to choose between

A) shut up and have people replace their phones, so more $$$

B) say something, deal with angry customers, best case scenario make $0, worst case scenario have to spend some $$$

and they chose A), cause, you know, corporation + $$$.

2. They couldn't figure out how to communicate the issue and its trade-offs correctly? The company that invests probably billions in carefully designed marketing?

Oh, and assuming you're right.

Why are they losing the lawsuit? Why do they have to pay tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars? Why are they being sued in Europe, too?

It's the third time I'm having the same discussion here :-)

Apple Shiny Aluminum Distortion Field, I'm telling ya!
Teachers Union leader under fire for pushing closed school while vacation
What most people seem to misunderstand about "driving" is that it is not a sensory or stimulus response problem. It is a cognition problem.

Computers or computer based "AI" are good at solving bounded problems that do not require open ended or on the fly model building and judgement exercising in real time. At this biological intelligence, honed by millions of years of selective evolution still excels.

Computers can "solve" GO or Chess because fundamentally the rules are simple and the models required to play these games are subject to only a few, static constraints.

Driving, in all conditions on all roads, on the other hand, requires a flexible model of the real world that approaches that built by sentient biological intelligences.

The problem is not sensor or perception latency.

Sure LIDAR can blow human perception out of the water.

But that does not matter.

What matters is making the correct decision based on sensory inputs using a high fidelity model of the real world.

Computer does not understand the difference between two people playing catch by the roadside, parallel to the road and a situation where a child might be chasing after a soccer ball. This is not just combinatorics and probability...it is theory of mind. Thus until AGI is invented FSD will be a misnomer.

Doesn't matter how much faster a computer can perceive if it does not know how to integrate the raw data it receives into a model of the world that yields correct decisions to the circumstances.
AirPods Max Condensate and Get Water Droplets in Drivers (Causes and Fix)
Where do you find the gigs?
Exactly this, this should become common knowledge, especially among the people who actually care to create something great. Work is work and private life is private life.

I've also worked in very toxic environments but nowadays I'm not surprised by anything anymore. People ask for uncomfortable/impossible accomplishments? Just explain in a very objective way what needs to be done, where the projects is at and how much effort it is normally. Also I highly encourage people to study the Jira boards (or whatever tool you use), chances are it's full of non-sense but also might contain hard facts how long tasks really take by other more established team members. This will make you confident on what the real metrics are and see what is a nonsense request and what not.

When people say slightly insulting things it's also best to not be emotional, say nothing or if you feel creative to respond with a respectful but tough response. In any case, it's normal to switch every 2 years and in larger shops there are enough unexpected but safe opportunities to tell about this nonsense. (E.g. when quitting)

Also I strongly agree with not speaking to HR/managers, it usually just gets worse (=stressful) the more you do it.
Smart! Though, it would be nice to have full html besides txt.
> "that ether seems to block the entire cell membrane"

For an ion channel there is a clear thing that can be blocked: the pore, but I don't think "blocking" a membrane in this context is meaningful. That's the crux of why we don't know how/why many anaesthetics work. We have some ideas, the obvious ones seem to be wrong, the less obvious ones are harder to test with the current level of technology.
I can't speak about the house in the bay area, but everything else is very affordable even if not in a FAANG. Plenty of people in my much lower paying company have investment properties here and there. You need enough to pay the down payment, and need skills to find houses at a discount. If you're really good at it, you can find houses at incredible discounts (with lots of risks attached).
One can be both empathetic and direct.

Jobs was highly empathetic, it’s why he was able to understand the customer so well and why he was famous for saying “the customer doesn’t know what they want”.

Understanding someone’s emotional state does not mean you need to coddle them.
That’s because you aren’t on a visa ?
Haven't seen cocaine mentioned anywhere, and I know for a fact it was a bit of a thing there back in the day.
The levels of symbolic irony here are rewarding and disturbing.
We can recycle styrofoam? This is news to me.

You can't recycle wax paper cups. But they'll either break down in the landfill, which is fine. Or they won't, which is a form of carbon capture, which is also fine. You can also burn it for energy.
>Everybody who disagrees with you is wrong, by definition.

That's not what I said. I said the following:

>This post wasn't written for you[, a person who already works at a megacorp. The article is written for an audience who is considering a job at one.]. People who have already drunk the kool-aid [i.e. already works at a megacorp] need a much different approach to break their cognative dissonance[, a natural human bias which makes it difficult to critically examine oneself].

I annotated it here for clarity, but I understand that my comment relies heavily on context for this interpretation to work, and I understand how that would cause you to read it differently.
The flip side to this is that startups looking for VC funding and explosive growth are wannabe megacorps, and can commit the same sins writ small even if they don't make it to the "top". And if they do hit the jackpot, well, they become the megacorps (or achieve "success" by being sold to a megacorp).

I generally agree with what Drew is saying here, but it's important to remember it's not just the business's size. It's the mentality and values. A "lifestyle business" that isn't dedicated to growth at any cost may be less likely to leave a trail of bodies behind it, but petty mundane evil still exists in mom-and-pop shops. It's all part of the same capitalist system, from top to bottom.

It's very difficult to maintain any values when your life depends on submitting to capitalism, and I think picking on specific entities within capitalism may be a distraction. It's easier to make choices based on your values if e.g. leaving a job doesn't mean losing your healthcare during a pandemic. Only systemic change can meaningfully prevent the evils of megacorps, rather than shuffling around who is doing the harm that capitalism incentivizes.

I do think you should avoid working for evil megacorps, but perhaps it's not the best use of your time and energy to vilify people who feel that doing so is necessary. It may be better to help e.g. unionize those workforces so they can organize to e.g. hold Amazon to their climate commitments.
I've seen this a few times. I'll say what I said last time:

If many people are substantially harmed by wasting their time and energy on distractions, then those who waste less time will outcompete them. Whether the mechanism is common wisdom analogous to "don't drink alone or before the evening", parents teaching their kids in certain ways, religions that consider much "wasteful" entertainment to be sinful, or genes that contribute to conditions perhaps resembling autism where colorful flashy video registers as annoying or even painful, the problem seems likely to create its own solutions.

One of the premises of "Brave New World" is that all children are raised by the State, and are forcibly (a) oxygen-deprived in the womb to limit their intelligence and (b) subjected throughout childhood to indoctrination and hypnotherapy to make them say "I'm happy and content with my life, and my only desire is to chase consumer goods". I'm not sure why so many people seem to forget this.
Great marketing isn't just about an individual product -- it's about your entire brand. It influences the way people perceive your company as a whole, how they feel about it emotionally. And Apple's marketing is second to none.
I agree with this response 100%. Don’t use valuable mental calories on this. Just adapt. Use the saved energy on something more deserving of your time.
> When it comes to scientific discoveries, "how" and "why" are essentially the same question

I agree, and that's my point. The parent poster seems to make a distinction that I am struggling to understand.
I worked in small startups, mid sized, and now a mega corp (one of the tech giants, btw I think my current company is the most ethical amongst all the tech giants). I liked this one the most, mostly because:

- salary and perks are nice
- people are smart
- people are understanding

I don't solve interesting problems, mostly just run of the mill internal tools web app.

The only downside is that I can't do it remotely (this will be an onsite job, after this pandemic ends, said the management), or from another country. I'd love to just go to another country (my country of origin, or my wife's country of origin) and work there, but with US salary.

I'd love to have financial independence, spending time with my families which live apart from me. Thinking of starting my own, but SaaS software is extremely competitive and risky, and probably won't be making money.

Btw I see a lot of hostility among the comments. I myself actually appreciate the post, thank you for the author. I do think a lot about ethical concerns when applying to companies, and I'm happy to have found one that I have no problem with.
Adding FFI Support in X7, a Lisp Made in Rust
Really? Groupies below 15 were common?
We would be using another subset of SGML otherwise. There's no way that something resembling the WWW wouldn't have been invented without CERN.

And Einstein's patent office was cheaper.
We’ve reinvented the wheel because CS education is really bad at teaching what computation actually is. Then, if you did not study CS (which I did not so I know), you’re really on your own for figuring out what the heck you’re actually doing when you program.

There are some very simple and elegant concepts at the bottom
of the chain that are really useful to understand, and state machines are for sure one of them.

Even with state machines, people often dislike talking about them because they’re seen as impractical since they don’t always have a great correspondence to code. But computation is more than just code.
Novosbed Mattress Savings $400
Just the idea of a school is worse than a prison:
- it’s mandatory
- closed confinement
- not allowed to do what you want in that closed area
- you’re being told what to do for at least 8-14 years
- you’re being told when to pee
- during the years there is no choice in what you want to learn
And at the end of your school/studies you’re asked to be creative and responsible
I would urge you to sit on your hands so to speak, and fact-check your own intuitive responses. For example (1) might be true, but how often? And Larry Elder seems to mean that 75% of black women is not married, how did that happen?
2) You're probably not wrong, but he frames it as: the government may be (inadvertently?) discouraging marriage, which backfires on black kids (boys mostly).

Anyway, listening to the right has certainly enriched my thinking in various aspects.
I got a really good laugh out of this one, and if you stretch the definition a bit you might be able to call it insightful:

> By the way, I decided to also quick summarize the usual HN threads that have the trigger word iPhone in it...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23003595
I think this is an example of the kind of armchair international relations pareidolia that shaves off much of the nuance of the real world. It tends to be mixed with main character syndrome.

It reminds me of a friend I knew who was terrified that the Chinese would search all his belongings and files once he landed in Beijing. Of course, once he got there he soon realized most people did not give a shit about what a random foreigner was up to
> I'm quite surprised that Linux still works on a 386SX

The resolution is that BasicLinux is pretty old itself:

> BL3 is a mini-Linux designed specifically for old PCs. It provides a slim
2.2.26 kernel
EU has very limited to no impact how businesses are created. Some member states are more flexible (Estonia) than others (probably a long list).
The App Store (i.e. a single gatekeeper with arbitrary policies) is a terrible way to distribute software. Since this is a MacOS app, perhaps the developer should choose to distribute it as a .dmg, free of all the App Store bullshit.
Almost, Star Wars and LOTR are not really self propelling ideas that guide populations of people. The information is there, it's just not nearly as memetic.

Although I would say that Star Wars has inspired a lot of space exploration, it's not nearly as viral as something like Christianity.
> So we pretend. We write, we cite, we present, overiflate, overpromise etc.

> so tax payers can sleep well that their money is paid for hard work.

It's a bit contradictory.

I won't go into scandalized rant because it's useless, and there's no point shouting against the universe from a bedroom chair. Still it's a bit disheartening. I wish the scientific world could reinvigorate and pump some spark back into the field.
I don’t think the actual fact is really up for debate. Disinformation is in the same category as phishing, social engineering, and online scams; they’re just targeted at more than one mark at a time.

We deal with phishing with both education and blocking. Because I could, right now, craft a phishing email targeting my own company that would get an 85%+ success rate of stealing their SSO passwords. No amount of education could realistically stop me because I know just what buttons to press. We would respond to this by yoinking the email out of everyone’s inbox.

The debate is what are the acceptable measures to deal with the it which spawns a secondary debate about how large the problem is which determines how aggressive is acceptable.
It's ironic that the big tech companies which are most affected by issues of racism, misogyny, safety... Are also the ones doing the most preaching about it in the media.
Just because these corporations and the media are rotten to the core, they assume that the rot is all around as well. It's not.
These big tech corporations just attract the worst people.
> If I had a euro for every time I've heard a prediction of the collapse of the euro the Euro would have collapsed because of devaluation by now.

FTFY
When I was in elementary school, we were told to try to use the bathroom after lunch, or during recess. This was teaching how to plan for what you needed to do and use the opportunities you had to get it done. You had four or five times a day when you could go to the bathroom without needing to be excused from class.

It was actually harder in high school because other than lunch, you had minimal passing time between classes (just a few minutes) so if you stopped to go to the bathroom there was a good chance you'd be late to your next class. And of course no recess. Lunch and P.E. were the two chances you had per day to use the bathroom without having to ask.
A megacorp is my dream job. They hired me 20+ years ago. I got in through the back door during a hiring freeze, and have carved my own niche, mainly by enjoying the kind of work that most engineers hate and being able to communicate the results. I live in a pleasant town, ride my bike to work, play in a band, and enjoy outdoor activities. I've received regular promotions, and am at the highest level that anybody's ever gotten without being a manager.

And I'm working with really nice people.

Maybe it's my imposter syndrome speaking, but I always think that I've pulled a fast one by getting this far in my career without being exposed as an incompetent.

Certainly, there's someone X levels above me who doesn't know who I am and doesn't care, but that really doesn't affect my life.
> Do you have a multicast group for each service, and have each client tasks leave and join it when interested?

That's what i was thinking, yes.

> I'm not a multicast expert but I don't think switches can handle that.

As in it's impossible, or that's too much load? That would be 10 000 groups, each with 100 senders and some number of hundreds of receivers, but with membership changing relatively slowly. There would be lots of packets to move, but not a lot of IGMP to snoop, i think.

The total number of load messages sent is fewer in this model than in the model in the article, i think, because each backend sends a single multicast message, instead of N unicast TCP messages. The total number of messages delivered will be much higher - maybe about a hundred times higher?

> Maybe you'd have all the backend tasks on a machine report their load to a machine-level aggregator (rather than a cluster-wide one), which broadcasts it to all the other machines in the cluster, and then fans out from there to all the interested clients on that machine.

Service mesh style? I think the main effect is to bundle the messages into bigger packets, using a single group, since you still need to deliver the same set of messages to every machine. You actually end up delivering more messages, since there isn't any selectivity. I honestly don't know how this pans out!

> They mention using power of two choices to decrease the amount of state ("contentious data structures") a client has to deal with. I think mostly they mean not doing O(backend_tasks) operations on the RPC hot path or contending on a lock ever taken by operations that take O(backend_tasks), but even for less frequent load updates I'm not sure they want to be touching this state at all, or doing it in a lockless way, and ideally not maintaining it in RAM at all.

I was a bit confused by this, because i don't think it's a lot of state (one number per backend), so it doesn't seem like it would be hard to maintain and access. Particularly relative to the cost of doing an RPC call.

> So if you had perfect information for the load of all the servers, not just the ones in your current subset, what would you do with it anyway?

As i said, you keep a set of connections open, distribute requests between them using P2C or a weighted random choice, but also periodically update the set according to load statistics. This means you're not stuck with a static set of backends.