skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A lot of people here are saying this isn't the case, that seeing seemingly targeted ads for things you discussed in the presence of a phone is just a coincidence. I've also read a few articles about this, and their conclusion is the same, so I guess it's common knowledge.

What I always wonder is: why not? We have the technology to recognize keywords in speech, the ability to passively identify handsets, and we certainly have the technology to target ads to people based on keywords. Unless there is no money to be made doing it, why the hell wouldn't your phone be overhearing your conversations and serving ads to you? Is it that we think Google and Apple and Amazon and Facebook and various ad platforms respect our privacy too much to do something that sinister?
...
Am I the only one who thought "Well damn, who'd have guessed making landmines that fly would be adding one terrible idea on top of another?"

I can't be the only one.

Please tell me I'm not.
Do androids dream of Berkeley? The city of Phillip K. Dick's youth
Typical US-centric problems.

Anywhere else CS is called „Informatics“, meaning the science to do with information.

Broad enough to make articles like this unnecessary.
Thanks for this, very informative. So LTV is forecasted "lifetime value". So, if I'm 30, they'll estimate ~50 years of revenue going forward from me and use this as LTV?
I've found Walmart.com to be about as good as Amazon for my online shopping (in the US). I particularly find Walmart to be a lot better for some dry goods like cereal and Clif bars. They can mix delivery from their warehouses and from local stores.

This is not me shilling Walmart. I've been pleasantly surprised by it in the last year, and find it to be a real competitor to shopping at Amazon.
GP probably meant North Korea.
Encouraging news and a business structure that has the workers fully invested and rewarded as a CO-OP structure does, really is a good fit for this type of business and I hope it takes off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative - background on co-op's

https://www.drivers.coop/ this co-op's site and they have an app.
At Harvey Mudd College, when I was there in the 80s, the Computer Science department was part of the Biology department: They had one prof who did CS exclusively, one who did Biology exclusively, and one who did both. The “real” departments, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Engineering all offered the option to do a CS option within them, but one of the cool things about Mudd of that era (I’m not sure how much of this has survived since then), was that you didn’t really do a specialized degree in Math, Physics, etc. but got a good broad education across the discipline.
The forcibly sterilized immigrants you cite, based on the ongoing investigation, point to a rogue doctor from a single camp. This does not excuse these actions but it's such a far cry from genocide that it appears disingenuous.
Do you have any sources for long term mRNA vaccine trials on humans?

My searches seem to indicate there are none, other than the preliminary, limited scope short term trials
Nine Highlights from the Kotlin Roadmap
Which in turn is a good thing, right? Because people seem to get pooled together and the ads aren't clever enough to distinguish.
I came here to drop BT's name. Also see his song 1.618 based on the Golden ratio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybgsUo5kcyM
Part Time Hackathon(Remote), anybody interest?
Are you looking to work on a short term project to stretch your skills, learn from your peers and work on something fun that you probably couldn't build yourself.

I'm putting together a 2 week long hackathon that's more part time in nature. If enough people are interested we'll have 3-4 teams each with 4-5 participants each to compete.

So if you want participate or you have an idea you don't think you could finish on your own. Add a comment below with ideas and interest.

Also, to get notified on more details email pthackathon@gmail.com and I'll get back to you.
I am just amazed people pay attention to the ads. I’m sure this is happening to me but my brain has gotten so good at filtering them out that I have no idea what they’re even trying to sell me!
Amazon is simply not prepared to deal with this. Because of their "shady seller" and "comingled inventory" problem, they can't tell easily if a buyer or seller is trying to scam them.

Electronics I buy from either Best Buy or B&H Photo.

For non-electronic "Name Brand" items where counterfeit is likely, I'll go to Target.com, etc.
> You mean the number of suicides at foxconn?

There are fewer suicides at FoxConn than would be expected given the age profile and number of their employees. If you employ hundreds of thousands of people some of them will kill themselves for reasons entirely unrelated from work. If they live in work dormitories they’ll do it at work.
Back in the day (round these parts anyway) books were always full price [1].

Nowadays, I'm not going to pay full price to wait for a week either, but there are alternatives to Amazon.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Book_Agreement
I've found more instances of sites blocking the temporary email services (typically forums) than I have situations where it worked as a bypass :/
> at least two decades of conditioning

I'd say three centuries, but who's counting ...

(or whenever printing got cheap enough to use for advertising)
An alternative and much more boring explanation for this and others' stories in the replies is confirmation bias.
Most improvements to safety have come after serious disasters. Seatbelts, non-hydrogen zeppelins, life boats on cruise ships, etc.
Generally speaking, you can find plenty of daylight readable portables today: They're sold as "rugged" laptops, as they tend to be found in fleet vehicles.
Yes, the adage should be "changes for the better start with changes for the worse."
"Monopolization Defined"

The antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition by creating or maintaining monopoly power. Most Section 2 claims involve the conduct of a firm with a leading market position, although Section 2 of the Sherman Act also bans attempts to monopolize and conspiracies to monopolize. As a first step, courts ask if the firm has "monopoly power" in any market. This requires in-depth study of the products sold by the leading firm, and any alternative products consumers may turn to if the firm attempted to raise prices. Then courts ask if that leading position was gained or maintained through improper conduct—that is, something other than merely having a better product, superior management or historic accident. Here courts evaluate the anticompetitive effects of the conduct and its procompetitive justifications.

"Market Power"

Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

What you may think has little relation to governing regulatory law.
Amazon diversity has done the needful. Expect them to go the same way as the rest of the companies invaded by foreign agressors.
Chinese weapon scientist has been working at the heart of Cambridge University's
You're trying to apply current law to mere predictions of what the law might be in the future. He's saying that for example political affiliation might become a protected category. Nothing bizarre about it.
"Sensodyne has Novamin"

There is nothing like Novamin among other toothpaste brands. Novamin has long existed as a bone regeneration treatment, with a very proven mode of action. The inventor spun it off and GSK bought the company and made it exclusive to Sensodyne. This isn't a company that made some fun name on a method of fluoride.

It doesn't exist formally in the US (or at least it didn't) because FDA rules would make it fall under a medical treatment and a toothpaste isn't possibly worth the process and bureaucratic overhead.

>Anyway, it doesn't seem like Novamin makes a real difference

That is a study of studies, and its conclusion isn't that there is no "real difference", but that there is a need for more clinical trials, which is an enormous difference.

Because there is little demonstrated proof of Novamin specifically in regards to teeth. It is largely theoretical.

But for what it's worth, I've used it for a bit over a year and now have zero sensitivity and my teeth are demonstratably much whiter. My own anecdotal experience is very positive, though maybe I'll have throat cancer or a third eye or something eventually.
No?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract#Consideration

>Anything of value promised by one party to the other when making a contract can be treated as "consideration": for example, if A signs a contract to buy a car from B for $5,000, A's consideration is the $5,000, and B's consideration is the car.
When responding to criticism against China, people who point out that western countries human rights records are also very problematic, or people who point out that western propaganda is at work, are often accused of whataboutism. The reasoning is that misconduct by western countries doesn't make their criticism against China invalid.

If we accept that, then the reverse should also apply:
Misconduct by China doesn't make China's criticism against the US invalid.
Do Whistle-Blowers Damage National Security?
A substantial portion of theoretical computer science.

There are huge swaths of the field that deal with things like machine learning or distributed systems or computer architecture that don't really fall under that categorization.
Eh, not really. At least in the nordic countries I haven't really seen many other translations than "computer science" with eg. uni degrees
Generally speaking my personal experiences with Amazon have been good. However, I’ve similarly shifted most of my online purchases elsewhere because (1) I don’t trust the reviews anymore and (2) I don’t trust Amazon’s suppliers.

Ironically, my purchases on Amazon these days are almost exclusively books and ebooks.
Getting a Baby Out [on childbirth and labor]
Global anything.
It’s not the papers per se that get you tenure — it’s the grants you bring in, and you can only get those by going through funding agencies, who are the ones that care about your publications. The grant process is like this: you write a proposal that says “I want to do this. Here’s how it will work. I’ve published these papers to support my idea. Now give me $x million dollars”. That pitch only works if there is a significant publication record to back it up.

That’s why there’s a monoculture — everyone is going through the same agencies: nsf, darpa, and a handful of other government/institutional funding sources. If you are bringing in 10s of millions of dollars worth of funding into the university with only a handful of papers, you’re going to still have a lot of support for your tenure. The flip side is that you can publish all day every day, but if you’re not bringing in grants you’re not getting tenure.
AI EdTech Gets SoftBank Treatment
The hard part about copying Apple in wearables isn’t the software. It’s the hardware. Yes another company theoretically could make hardware that has the same performance/power efficiency as the S1 series in the Apple Watch. But, no other company is going to spend the money since they don’t think they will recoup it.

Just as most people who are willing to spend money on high end phones buy iPhones, the same is true for other wearables. Apple knows that it can recoup the up front costs of any research and development.
That's geolocation. They knew your friend got a dog, they knew you were in the same location, now they assume you might be interested in dogs too. I still think it's super creepy and invasive, but I think most likely they aren't listening to microphones.
> This is only half correct. Until Mr. Xi came to power, China was getting wealthier and (somewhat) more open.

The Internet filtering was already being introduced by Hu Jintao. But, admittedly, Xi is the Paranoid-Man.
> Like how else could it work? They investigate everything, spending more money than the cost of the refund?

Is anyone actually arguing for fewer "easy refunds" and more investigation? I though the point was that given the fact that most of their refunds are handled algorithmically, they have plenty of time to handle the rest of the refunds quickly and with care.

If I don't get my order, I want my money back. If the algorith decides I can get that with no investigation required, sure, I'll take it. But if the algorithm thinks they shouldn't take the "shortcut", I still deserve my money back and a human should be dispatched to deal with it ASAP.

Algorithmically adjudicating in favor of the customer is fine - it's their money they're risking. But algorithmically adjudicating against the customer should never be allowed without a human looking things over.
It seems like that association was engineered. The question went something like "did the virus leak from the WIV?" to which the mass media responded "no, the virus was not man-made!"
For me, it’s not paying attention to the ads. I never have. I haven’t clicked on an ad in decades.

My interest is in the manipulation taking place on all the people who do click on ads, and the likely negative affect on society.

Obviously, enough people click on ads to make it worthwhile for the advertisers. And this is despite all the people who think ads don’t work on them.
Running OpenEBS on a Odroid HC4 Cluster
The NC10 was a great device for its time -- lightweight, long battery life, nearly full size keyboard. I used it as my primary computing device for years, and would still be using it had it not suffered the pinched display cable problem, and I broke the hinge trying to fix it.

What killed the netbook was the ultrabook -- similar weight and battery life, but with a larger display and full size keyboard.
How many troops did the Americans send into Libya during its revolution? And what American units were responsible for killing Gaddafi?

Why does America always get blamed for the Libya when we (and the rest of the world) were just spectators to a country falling apart due to an internal revolution? America supported the revolution, sure, they even provided some air support, but it was by no means much of a military player in it, it didn’t set it into action. China was only pissed off about this because they had lots of deals with Gaddafi at the time, they didn’t care how unstable the regime was (most authoritarian regimes that aren’t China are incredibly unstable) and got burned for it.

The same with Syria. Again, nothing started by the USA or any other country, internal revolution caused by unstable authoritarian regime, which coincidentally made a lot of business deals with China because everyone else was wary of dealing with them. We’ve seen this before, we will see it again. They’ll happen regardless of whether the USA or Russia get involved.
What’s the realistic cost ceiling for a project delivered on time and within budget? Change orders really seem to ramp up on projects with a $250,000+ electrical budget (probably 1.5-2M total) from what I’ve seen, with projects below that requiring fewer change orders.

You’re correct about the government/government projects. Schools are a bit tighter on changes (for obvious reasons) but I’ve worked on a few projects for a county judicial system and a couple US Federal Court projects, and let’s just say if the judge wants something changed, it gets changed :)
When will I be able to grow myself a new body of the opposite sex? A long time it seems. But I very much think this is the right direction of travel. Observing tissues and then trying to model them in silicon is useful, but to really grok this you have to tinker around and engineer tissues yourself. Magical and wondrous medical technology awaits us in this direction. Crack the bio-electric and chemotaxis code and you improve human life immeasurably. God speed to the small band of people working in this area.
Richard Feynman's take on the term Computer Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4wg6ZAFIM
Implementation will be hard. Having the mic on all the time drains battery. Storing the data offline and uploading discreetly when the device is plugged in will be discovered quickly.
I think on-device voice recognition has come a long way nowadays so with more powerful phones, one of the big companies might try this soon.
> I don't own any Apple products, and I don't endorse their labor practices,

So which labor practices does Apple engage in that every other phone manufacturer doesn’t - using the same factories and supply chain?
That is also only half of the story. Prior to Xi, China was on the verge of collapse due to internal corruption, and its economic strategy was too focused on cheap labor and low-quality products. That wasn't sustainable.

This doesn't mean I'm supporting Xi. I'm just pointing out that China's direction had to change, some way or another, so it makes no sense to look back at previous administrations with rose-colored glasses.
That’s exactly the intention. There should not be a conscious connection between the ads and the actions, because it would reduce the effectiveness.

Thing is, your brain does all the processing: it reads the label, it detects the colors and brands, it associates it with previous experiences and reinforces all these connections. Then, at the last moment it decides not to engage the neocortex, so you’re not consciously aware of it.
You can tell yourself that it doesn't really matter, but it will eventually.

For a start, your colleagues probably won't see you as an equal. We equate pay to seniority, so someone who is paid less is considered more junior even if technically they're not. That leads to getting the sucky work and not being trusted with complex tasks as much. If there are layoffs then you'll been seen as the least likely person to be let go because you're cheaper, so others will resent that.

Obviously companies deny this happens, and some actively work to stop it if they're good and progressive, but it still goes on.

Admittedly this is from the perspective of working in the UK and looking at US companies employing remote workers here, so the pay difference isn't so great as other places. If you're somewhere that pays significantly less so the remote job is still hugely better than local wages I imagine that would go a long way to mitigating the cognitive problem of working with people who are paid a lot more for the same role.
Well, the unfortunate part is that he's at least somewhat correct, and it's been found that psychopaths are much less likely to seek/adhere to mental health treatment such as SSRIs.
Democracies have inherent inefficiencies, which need to be compensated. Everything else being equal, dictatorships can ramp up infrastructure faster than any democracy.

Tariffs should have favoured manufacturing in free countries, to encourage openness and freedom. That did not happen between 1990-2020.
Well stated.

That would be leaning in to the "telescope science" analogy.
The descriptions are taken from the font files. Book Antiqua, Century Gothic, Arial, New Century Schoolbook, Bookman Antiqua, Times New Roman were designed to be drop-in replacements for the “Laserwriter 35” fonts from Adobe/Linotype that had become ubiquitous in 90s typography. The Microsoft-Monotype deal was one that the Monotype people were justifiably ashamed of, but also kept the company from bankruptcy. Ironically, in the twenty-first century, an era of consolidation unified longtime rivals Monotype and Linotype (along with Agfa and ITC) into a single entity.

The most interesting of the faces of this project, to my mind, is Century Gothic. It takes Twentieth Century (itself a knock-off of Futura), and modifies it to fit the dimensions of Avant-Garde and ends up with a design that’s neither Futura nor Avant-Garde but its own thing.
In most homeschooling families, one of the parents stays home to be the primary teacher.

Many of the best teachers I've ever had didn't have education degrees and were totally outside of the formal academic system.

The worst teachers I've ever had were all in the academic system.

I don't think the pedagogical knowledge and credentials have much to do with whether someone is a good teacher.
To me this could be a great way for people with fulltime jobs to find potential partners for a future startup with out a major up front commitment.

Also, if you know anywhere to cross post this post in the comments.
And I don’t think it was about covid. If Trump said the sky is blue, the NYT and CNN would spend the next week trying to demonstrate it isn’t, and twitter, facebook and youtube would block you if you ever suggested it was. This was such a puerile way to oppose Trump, and certainly a reliable way to sink these institutions credibility for a long time.
The whole point of special/general relativity (at least the Minkowski approach to it, ie the approach that calls time a dimension) is that it the time dimension is related to the spatial dimensions. At non-relativistic speeds it seems unrelated, but for very fast-moving objects or particles the interplay between space and time becomes quite important, and for an object moving along a path the notions of time as-measured-by an external observer (roughly, ending coordinate in the time dimension minus the starting coordinate) and time as-measured-by the object (roughly, the Minkowski-length of a path in spacetime) become quite different things.
Getting tenure means (ideally) that the system considers you have proven yourself as a competent researcher and therefore accepts to release a bit of pressure on publishing to allow you to pursue more exploratory objectives. It does not mean you're allowed to behave badly and (officially) does not protect oneself from the consequences of such behaviour. Remove tenure and you remove the last bastion of real research we have left in our industrialized and quasi-corporate western research institutions.

Removing tenure would completely trash western science and in practice yield total scientific leadership to eastern powers, who still have old style academic systems with strong tenure positions and less concern for academic mistreatment and "wokeness".
Main difference seems to be that China has a nationalist government...i.e. it pursues an economic policy that benefits a broad range of its population while the USA has a plutocratic government...i.e. it pursues an economic policy that mainly benefits the transnational business elite. USA is pro-gobalist. China is pro-China. Wonder how things would be different if USA was pro-USA. Much is made of the supposed lower labour costs in China. Initially that may have been the fuel that enabled off shoring to launch. I don't think it is what sustains it in the present time. What sustains it is the network effects industries that China dominates. I.e. electronic assembly in the Shenzhen area is maintained by the vast ecosystem suppliers and manufacturers there not just low labour costs. That ecosystem does not exist in say, SV because in recent years investment has not been made in such things as hardware assembly. Investment improves capital, capital enables productive and comparative advantage that reduces the relative importance of "dumb" low wages.
Yes, B&H is always the place to go for things like that. I just bought 15k worth of camera equipment for my dad and with the new store card it's an instant refund on taxes. The 30 day return policy is the cherry on top.
I wonder: is this a bad thing? Obviously, the tech wasn’t smart enough to show him better ads.

It put him into to the same bucket as his mum. And that is clearly not very “personalized,” not targeted.
I don't pay attention to the ads I see either, but occasionally they are a little on the nose and I remember them. It's natural that you could recall one or two ads a year that came up at "the right time"