skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
mRNA: How a once-dismissed idea became a leading Covid vaccine
Uber were running ads, and some of them were appearing on Breitbart.

There's a campaign called "sleeping giants" that looks at a company's corporate values, and looks at where that company is advertising, and asks whether that ad placement is compatible with the values. Breitbart has freedom to say what they like, but customers of Uber don't have to buy the megaphone.

Uber tried to pull the ads from Breitbart.

But the ads kept appearing.

So Uber looked closer, and they realised some of the data reporting was fraudulent. One ad company had a "battery saver" ap on Google Play. That ap had strong permissions, and it was scanning for people typing "uber" into the Google Play store. When they did that the ap made it look like the user had clicked on an ad and then installed the Uber app when they'd just organically found the uber app themself.

Uber closed off a lot more of their ad spend and they found no difference in user signup.
> An ad that took me 15 seconds to create had a 2.5x better clickthrough rate than one done by a paid designer. If this were an actual campaign it would mean 2.5x more sales leads or user signups at a lower acquisition cost, on top of shipping faster with less overhead.

That is a false assumption.

Not all clickers are equal.

Not all leads are equal.

More is not necessarily better.

Better is better. Full stop.
But most of the people with these skills are not independently wealthy, and would be hard pressed to give up wages for a few months just to participate.

I think the ideal situation would just be to use a tiered prize structure. Where the longer you last the more money you get, but not so much that you're incentivized to stay after it becomes hopeless/dangerous. A 500K 1st prize could easily be split into 150/100/75/50/50/25/25/25 for places 1-8. That way you're always competing for about 25K more, but you're not desperate to hang out or get sent home with nothing.
Notice the blurred pics being presented as motion blur trying to do seal “secrets”
big brands have the least to gain from online ads
Does advertising create an increase in buying your product. That’s the most important question.
FontAwesome to PNG Converter Online
Can you get decent battery life with this ecc memory in a laptop?
It should probably mention the special cased mod.rs files.
Tauromachy (bullfighting) is a very ancient ritual: the spanish one is just one of its most recent formalisation. Venationes (hunting games) were common practice in Rome. The picture of gladiators fighting lions in the Colosseum is iconic, but bulls were also used.
While the technology is now somewhat accessible (as of 2019 in both cases you mention), this conspiracy theory dates back nearly to the introduction of smartphones. I have heard it as early as 2011.

A number of other anecdotal experiments, such as one performed by myself, failed to show this behavior. A more tightly controlled but still informal experiment by a vaguely related security firm failed to find this behavior[1]. An academic effort by researchers at Northwestern failed to find this behavior [2]. This is by far the most thorough academic effort on the topic I have seen.

Facebook has clearly denied it [3]. Google has not issued such a clear statement but has been reasonably open about changes in their policy on voice data [4]. After considering the issue from several angles, P. J. Vogt concluded that no such thing happens [5]. Even the paper you cite notes the total lack of evidence.

Perhaps most notably, almost all of the popular media reporting that bears headlines saying that your phone is listening to your conversations, actually say no such thing when you read the article. Instead they are talking about analytics on voice assistant activations and, frequently, voice memos in Facebook Messenger. Amusingly I've run into two cases where popular press had to issue retractions or corrections after they said that smartphones were always-listening.

The only serious sources I have ever seen assert that this is happening are Vice's Sam Nichols based on Dr. Henway. Henway makes some very specific claims to two different reporters but provides no explanation of how he came to that knowledge. To an almost comical extent, nearly all reporting in favor of this theory (that even claims to have a source) is based around the exact same quote from Henway, who has never published anything formal on the matter or even really elaborated beyond a single paragraph. Nichols only performs a very basic experiment and it is easy to come up with other ways he may have gotten the result he did - in fact, the experiment he performs is nearly identical to the ones performed by others that have failed to show results.

Look, I'm not totally unreceptive to the idea that this is happening, but I don't like people repeating the assertion-as-fact that it is a widespread behavior when major tech companies that have denied it, and no real evidence has ever been amassed to show that it does happen.

Just my opinion, but... well, just all of our opinions. Let's be careful about calling them facts.

[1] https://www.wandera.com/phone-listening/
[2] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/141...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2017/10/31/faceboo...
[4] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21354805/google-email-audi...
[5] https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3hlwr
Aye. I have an assert in the code that fronts a very pedantic test of the context. In all cases when this assert was tripped (and reported) an overnight memtest86 test surfaced RAM issues.

- Edit -

Also, bit flips in the non-ECC memory are _the_ cause of the "bitrot" phenomenon. That is when you write out X to a storage device, but you get Y when you read it back. A common explanation is that the corruption happens _at rest_. However all drives from the last 30+ years have FEC support, so in reality the only way a bit rot can happen is if the data is damaged _in transit_, while in RAM, on the way to/from the storage media.

So, if you ever decide if to get an ECC RAM, get it. It's very much worth it.
A thread for well-intentioned engineers about how to navigate big tech
Yeah exactly, another thing he could've done is put a girl in a bikini or a gross pic of toenails, a la Outbrain. That'll get people to click more than a "normal" ad but only the hackiest of hacks thinks that's the ultimate goal.
Researcher fails to make money for half a decade because they were working on something that they wouldn't figure out for an additional two decades.

Okay...?

If this still bothers you, please tell me what kind of organization would exist to support 25 years of false starts, and what needs to change to make that kind of organization exist.
The follies of human organizations since time immemorial summed up in a single point.
They mostly do it from inertia, how well it works is a separate question. Historically you can find many examples of hugely successful advertising campaigns, it’s much harder to quantify the negative.
Ah yes, the brilliant "reject a priori" inference strategy in the wild.

It's a statistically significant difference.
Is there even any progress in OSes with respect to how they deal with tasks/processes on GPUs?
Crazy AI Art
Earn interest on it or take out a loan with it through BlockFi.com and other lending services.
I find the paid-for design to be uninteresting and unattractive. If you were to ask me what I'd find when I clicked through, I would say that it's likely I'd be asked to sign up for a low-quality mailing list to receive a bland white paper.

The scribble version is, at least, novel. Still probably wouldn't click through, but at least it would grab my attention for a moment.
Some of the code was from X10!
Gold bars are not very practical as a currency either. Nor is fine art. But being one easy step away from fiat makes them extremely valuable.
You’ve got a point. Plus attribution modeling isn’t for the faint of heart.

One popular method is a geolocation test. Turn off the test campaign (usually remarketing) in certain geos and see what happens.
There was a fun one on the Galaxy Nexus phone where the time was off by 12 hours starting in March on leap years
The Wire in HD (2014)
I expect Google wants to "organize the world's information" with drones too, a la Google Maps did with roads/cars. Drones offer the latest coveted bridge to extend the Internet's instantaneous energy and awareness to incorporate the physical world.
“uMatrix has prevented the following page from loading: http://createsend.com/t/d-7426D8509B0D40372540EF23F30FEDED”

No thanks.
It looks like the party invite email that you get from HR to tell you there’s leftover pizza in the break room.
>It's generally a bad idea to drink coke

Not really, it's not worse compared to many other things people consume.
A few years back memtest86 wouldn’t run on newer machines, has that been fixed?
Yeah but the scribble version wears off faster, when everybody else starts copying the trick.
It depends.

The fact that it has a significant p-value is interesting, but the lack of information about how the author decided when to stop is suggestive of p-hacking (i.e. we don't know how many screenshots were taken, but we understand that the author posted only the most favourable one)
So how much ad spending is going to 'dubious ad networks'?

Are they easy to categorize? Or is it a big secret what's dubious and what isn't?
There's a huge difference between a company that is widely known for being the app for ride hailing and a small company trying to get eyes on their new product.
> but I wonder why there’s no library that uses both

Sciter (https://sciter.com) uses both, as internally as on user's level.

For example you may want to define this:

var bodyElement = document.body;

bodyElement.paintForeground = function(graphics) {
... draw something
... on top of <body> content
... using the graphics
}

This allows to benefit from both: retained mode (HTML DOM, layout cached) and immediate mode rendering - paint handlers on DOM elements.
What was the bounce rate, avg visit time and conversion rate (email signup) between people who came from the non-designed vs. designed ad though?

A higher clickthrough rate isn't necessarily better if more of the people who came from the non-designed ad didn't do much or anything on the page and mostly clicked out of curiosity.
The ugly scribble design is simply better design - using better design principles.

It communicates the useful part (in particular, the "call to action") clearly and instantly, without distraction.

There's more going into this than just the concept of writing on paper.
Sure. But there's a lot of overhead that comes with it, too.
The link in my email now goes to a blank page so I suspect that any future sign-ups will indeed route to a different page.
Got a call from our Google Ads account manager to better match conversion analytics with Google Ads, after 90 days we found that the ads didn't convert at all, no change in sales. End result was to suspend our Google Ads budget. The best phone call I got from Google staff.
Requirements or the asks need to be clealy documented before someone goes for a solution. The problem usually is they discover more use case while reasearching the solution.
In the real world, we often have to work on a "preponderance of evidence" standard to actually get things done.

Especially if the second option is cheaper and faster, there's IMO no bayesian prior that the professional ad being better (the null hypothesis) is true.

So... seems like useful data to me.
Regarding my family/friends, I was talking about managing myself, my own time, not them - in this particular case I meant that I could predict when I can be home to do my own things, for example.

My perspective never disallowed me from staying at the table for hours until everyone was saturated with friendly banter. I spent many months in Italy, Croatia, Spain, Georgia, Poland and elsewhere doing just that, and I consider it time spent productively - relaxation and socialization is important to me.
Tech Companies Are Paying Workers the Same Rates Across U.S.
If you want to buy a >>specific<< configuration of any brand, you will have to wait for months - even for Honda...
Hey all- I'm the author and just noticed this post. Thanks for the repost!

If you're interested, there was a nice discussion in /r/devops about this the other day: https://www.reddit.com/r/devops/comments/kmltbx/how_we_compr...
If you target hackers, try black backgrounds and green text.
$0-$500k/Mo in Peanut Butter Sales Using TikTok Influencers
The problem is that it’s “rare” and not “impossible.” Compilers have to be logically sound, not probabilistic when it comes to defined behaviors.
Ask HN: Should I take angel's money?
I got a profitable project. A few angels DMed me showing their interests to invest. But...

1. It's not a money-burning project. I have no employee, also no plan to buy ads.
2. Idk what it feels like if I take someone's money. Will it have too much pressure? So far I'm really enjoying doing this on my own pace.

Well, I also have three reasons to take their money:

1. Quit my day job without worrying financial stability
2. Use Angel's network to get more users
3. I'm noob on this VC thing, maybe getting a good angel as a mentor would also help?

How do you folks thing? Should I take or kindly say No? Thank you!
yep, but it is mostly those parts I want back. I can almldt live fine with:

- programming blogs that doesn't have ads

- Wikipedia

- three or four online newspapers/websites that I pay for anyway.

- HN

- all the old stuff: web rings and enthusiast web sites

- I'd probably miss stackoverflow but I use that site less and less these days anyways.

Most of the rest can burn and we'd maybe be better off. At least search results would be cleaner :-)
it’s funny how trillions of dollars in market cap are built on top of some service with unprovable and questionable value.
I was being somewhat glib. I guess I should’ve included some kind of sarcmark. I agree of course that it’s noble to find less pathological ways to protect the people who truly create. I don’t know if copyright is the right solution (or if it’s not), or what kind of timeframe would bring the most benefit with the least harm. But I certainly think the current implementation is so absurd as to be worth challenging.
I keep a “temp” browser profile (chrome —> settings —> add user profile) and install extensions there. That way you can use ghostery on specific sites and it has no access to your important data from your main profile
Probably worse than most textbook corporate ads: the 'free guide' and 'read more' are too small to catch the eye, and the title is boring and generic even so even the sort of person that reads ads and is in the target audience might pass. Unsurprising the novelty ad performs better, but a better conventional one might too.
...so that they can bypass Google’s captcha.
Isn't every pointer `restrict` in Fortran which was often cited as why it still outperformed C in many cases for a very long time?
One thing that frequently bugs me is APIs limiting number of items per page for reasons of efficiency. I can perfectly understand low limits for other reasons, like not helping people scrape your data.

But limiting for efficiency is usually done in a way that I would call a cargo cult: First, the number of items per "page" is usually a number one would pick per displayed page, in the range of 10 to 20. This is inefficient for the general case, the amount of data transmitted is usually just the same size as the request plus response headers. So if the API isn't strictly for display purposes, pick a number of items per page that gives a useful balance between not transmitting too much useless data, but keeping query and response overhead low. Paginate in chunks of 100kB or more.

In terms of computation and backend load, pagination can be as expensive for a 1-page-query as for a full query. Usually this occurs when the query doesn't directly hit an index or similar data structure where a full sweep over all the data cannot be avoided. So think and benchmark before you paginate, and maybe add an index here and there.
you also fail to mention that the mongols did mass slaughtering of the entire population of cities that resisted. It was genocide at mass, even children and women were not spared.

Also, their raids will conflict massive damage to local populations (pillaging, plundering and rape).

So, yeah..... you make it like it was some kind of 'chivalrous' game between nobles/elites, while it was not at all.
On a similar note, during the 1960 Olympics in Rome, wrestling competitions were held at Massentium's Basilica [1]. If Rome ever gets to host another edition of the Olympic Games, the Colosseum would make for an incredible setting.

[1] https://www.rerumromanarum.com/2016/08/olimpiadi-di-roma-196... (in Italian, but it has pictures)
So basically procrastination. Not exactly the same, but the same sentiment.
180-Degree Rule
> Not really, no. Sort of.

> I have a Mi Band 5, and wanted to use GadgetBridge instead of the official Mi Fit or Amazfit/Zepp app.

> I was surprised to learn this was not easy to do. I needed to retrieve the Bluetooth MAC from the proprietary app via rooted app, or by logging in via script, which no layman would do.

> The watch is now paired with GadgetBridge, but the steps are hard enough to dissuade anyone from trying it.

There is now also an android app to fetch the key and gps almanac, very simple to do, no root or python required.

Note: I kivy wrapped and apk packaged the above mentioned script.
I work in digital marketing and this episode made me want to tear my ears off.

First of all, they didn't differentiate between display or PPC advertising. PPC you only pay if the user actually engaged with the ad. Nearly all of the anecdotes they used where about online display advertising - a known crock.

And we absolutely run experiments all the time! In fact, we tie our ad spend directly to conversions. If anything, the market is too efficient - it's really hard to get more than what you are paying for.
Ah yes, “you dislike Society yet you contribute to it in someway, I am so smart”.

The classical Sciences and Arts were all founded and developed under “divinely ordained” Monarchies. I suppose that would’ve been a fantastic case for conserving that system for you?

Have you thought that maybe all those material accomplishments made under capitalism have less to do with the system itself and more to do with the fact it’s the only one around? Pretty sure many of today’s tech is founded as much on innovation that came out of Soviet labs as anybody else’s.

Also, incidentally, current day capitalism is at the beck and call of one of the last remaining communist countries. Just a curiosity.
Would I rather:

Use a design that costs me money to produce and doesn't work, or...

Use a design that does not cost me to produce and does work, and then find something new to do when the novelty wears off?

Not a tough call for me.
Tencent games reinstated on Huawei app store
Wow, I didn't know about PICO-8, thanks!

Looks like something my son might enjoy too. He's been trying to get into writing games, but Scratch is too simple, and Unity is too complex. This looks really cool.

Strangely, he really likes retro graphics despite the power of modern machines.
so am I. It seemed that out of all the alternatives, this was the best option since it was free, and ostensibly recycled where all the other options were to throw it in landfill.
The title should be "TinyURL sets ad tracking cookies" as this is the only one proven to do in this article.

There are tons of URL shorteners, and not all of them do this.
At least with ecommerce one can track users that have seen and/or clicked on ads with what they have purchased and return on ad spend can be calculated.

But yes, the question still is: does it raise intent or did the user already want the thing, googled it, and clicked on the first result (which is your ad, above the organic results that also lead to your online store)?
12 year old me made napalm with the dissolved styrofoam
Very cool and as a lapsed GUI/graphics guy this makes complete sense to me. The bottleneck on guis is remastering and layout not cycling through the lists of sliders.

How often you repaint or have to relayout should depend on only two things. How often is your data changing? And how soon does the user need to see that new data?

Even things like moving the mouse or view are just data changes. (In fact, the biggest messes you'll get into when writing GUI and render code is when you've failed to incorporate something into your scene or data model and end up handling it with a lot of special case code.)
And in the files app, long tapping gives the option to scan a document, which works great. I’m trying to retain fewer pieces of paper and this is super convenient.
What happens to it when you die? Do you have a contingency plan to export this data somewhere for archival purposes?
Yeah, what I mean is that I don't think URL shorteners do anything for users aside from being slightly better to look at
Secure the Wp-Login File
"the humongous 16KB RAM expansion that connects on the back" Sigh. Memories.

It was the first computer I wrote a programme for that compiled and ran.

A programme to detect if a number was prime, by brute force.

Memory lane....
geojson, topojson, which is then displayed on a map
Hang on though, in the linked thread they said that the fraud was incurred at the point of real users signing up for uber -- when they type uber into the app store search (e.g. an organic install), the ad network fraudulently takes credit for it at that point. So "enough analytics/logging" would not do the trick here - I think they would have noticed if a certain type of ad wasn't leading to trips, as you are pointing at.
They both have full access. some may say “do you trust these publishers” – but the way extensions are designed, there’s no way to trust them. You have to be extremely vigilant and inspect the code every time the extension updates, and you aren’t notified when there are updates.

I wouldn’t install any extension permanently. I only keep Lastpass and it’s disabled until it’s needed for login.
> Are the Huami ones open source or hackable?

The Amazfit Bip has an unofficial BipOs, which is a very cleverly created reverse engineered SDK allowing to uploaded custom compiled programs.
This is the industry whose job is to manipulate and deceive people. It should surprise no one that, if they do that to others, they'll do that to themselves as well.
I believe the article is mainly around third-party websites displaying ads, not FB. I agree that Insta, FB, and Google ads are effective, but only on their own properties. I ran Google ads for an ecomm project and quickly disabled the affiliate site ads since they generated garbage traffic.
It's fully functional, though not straightforward. Needs a bit of setup, and doesn't handle multiple machines particularly well.

That's the perl version I linked. There's a similarly functional android version, I think.
Doesn’t gcc have a CPU feature branching system? You use it by attaching attributes to functions that say what instructions are required. Granted, it’s not as “elegant” as Rust, but it does exist.
It's exactly the same thing. I've been seeing this tossed around for years now, and one of these days it'll make me grumpy enough to fix the benchmark.
I think mh7 did not mean to hard-code intcmp into qsort. The idea is to move the definition of qsort directly into the stdlib.h header file. That way, the compiler can see the definition of qsort and intcmp at the same time.

In that case, the compiler could make a specialized qsort using intcmp automatically.
The Haskell code on some pathological examples of these implementations that I have seen has so many unsafe construct, strictness annotations, inlining annotations and so forth that it's practically C in a different syntax.

It is not idiomatic Haskell at all and loses all of the touted benefits.

Is there a separate benchmark that only accepts idiomatic code?