skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Germany has reported 114K deaths. India has only reported 484K deaths.

There are other aspects to the underreporting of deaths - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm5154

> The analyses find that India’s cumulative COVID deaths by September 2021 were 6-7 times higher than reported officially.

From back in June - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/07/20/1018438...

> The analysis, from the Center for Global Development, a think tank in Washington, D.C., looks at the number of "excess deaths" that occurred in India between January 2020 and June 2021 — in other words, how many more people died during that period than during a similar period of time in 2019 or other recent years.

> Drawing death data from civil registries and other sources, the report came up with three estimates for undercounts. The conclusion is that between 3.4 and 4.7 million more people died in that pandemic period than would have been predicted. That's up to 10 times higher than the Indian government's official death toll of 414,482.

The story isn't about the number of deaths itself but rather the underreporting of deaths. Another possible title would be "Covid-19 believed to be underreported by 6-10x in India" - though that fails to capture the sheer toll of the death and isn't as eye catching.

There is nothing to compare it with in Germany (for example) because the number of unreported covid-19 deaths is likely very small in comparison to the totals.
The counter-framing is this guy updated his project and thousands of projects chose to pull that update.

He didn't go around submitting PRs to update the version of this. He didn't deploy anything into production.

You have the right to use the code for free, and he has the right to do terrible things with his code. If you don't like that arrangement, get him to sign a contract that includes responsibilities on his part like not shipping intentionally broken packages. Or get your distribution from someone that does have a responsibility to you.

I probably wouldn't do the same in his position, but I still support his (moral) right to do what he did. It's his project, and he can tank it if he wants to. Just like if I had a business, I could tank it if I wanted to. It's probably not a wise thing to do, but it is something I could do.
How does the original owner confirm they own the thing before it gets logged in the blockchain though? I think that's the hard part. The conversion of ownership record from real life to blockchain.
Any surveys of India are going to amount to a small sample size across the entire population - India is massive.

Also, they're almost certainly undercounting the extremely poor, a very sizable group that is going to fall through the cracks no matter what standards you're trying to abide by.

There's a reason the title says "may" - there's an acknowledgement of room for error here.

The point is, India, in spite of their lack of adequate healthcare, are showing mortality rates well below other countries. I applaud the attempt to discern what the toll may truly be, flawed as it may be.

I'm sure if it was as simple as looking at public health data then they wouldn't have spent the money calling people in a survey.

I'm fine with people calling out error margins for research, but do you really have to say this is lousy clickbaity work?
It bothers me a little that all of your examples are vowels. Especially when you include OSHA in the list of examples. It's not the Shafety and Shealth Administration.
Debian also has debconf, which attempts to be a universal configuration management system, so it'll generate and re-generate configuration files from templates. Unfortunately, in my experience it gets in my way more often than it helps since I usually have separate automation that configures the software anyway.

I use Debian-based systems pretty rarely, so I still haven't figured out how you actually make dpkg regenerate your configuration files properly if you use automation to change a debconf selection and need to reconfigure a package. dpkg-reconfigure seems not to do what I want and just restores the previous value (or prompts interactively, which is not useful) for some reason.
> The NHS (despite fairly extreme under-funding) has better health outcomes for patients than in the US.

It really isn't underfunded. It's grossly inefficient, which is what happens to most if not all publicly funded bodies. It is actually ok to criticise the NHS organization.

They're a monopsony, so actually get absolutely gouged by the pharmaceutical companies. They (currently?) refused to recycle crutches, plastic casts and so on. They'll use their own (hospital pharmacy) drugs if you get admitted, and then discharge you with them, even if you have your own dosette box and refuse to take theirs back. My father was discharged with something in the region of £3-5000 pounds of drugs that we threw away on several occasions.

As a percentage of GDP, it's roughly the same as most other western countries.

Of most interest though is figure 3 in [2] - 80% of UK (NHS) funding came from public money, i.e. tax, and 20% from private money (e.g. insurance). For the US, it's 50% public money (tax), and 50% private money. I'm not sure how much more money the UK general public really thinks the UK government can come up with to keep giving the NHS "more!" money. There's a limit to how much people can be taxed. And compound interest (increase the NHS by 10% per annum!!) means we'd spend all our GDP on the NHS at some point rather quickly.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/317708/healthcare-expend...

[2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
> Most NFTs are like a title to a house

NFTs are like a title to a house that you wrote with a crayon.

There is no legal grounds for ownership, its just bunch of people claiming they own something and some other saying they agree.

You can convince whole china + india that you are king of england, but goodluck with actually sitting on the english throne.
Notaries are kind of exciting, when you can program them to execute code.

It's like having a notary that can notarize NEW things in a way that you won't tell every new notary how to notarize it. I think that's kind of cool
China’s new rocket for crewed moon missions to launch around 2026 – SpaceNews
Now if they could just pick up all the trash and dog shit, we'll be great.
What's unique to humans is the quantity and quality. Sure. Every species does something we do. But compared to us, not a single species does everything, nor to a degree we do.
Agree, the overuse of a word devalues its meaning. It shows certain lack of imagination as well.
How complicated it is to just clone the repo and point your apps to your forked version? That way this would not have happened.
"Most NFTs are like a title to a house, except you can copy the house". I'm not sure that example would clear things out
I'm very much in the correct thread.

NFTs have already gone dark in this fashion. https://twitter.com/CheckMyNFT/status/1369802069729812483

Hell, Jack "sold" his first Tweet for nearly $3M as an NFT. You don't own it. You can't delete it, you can't do anything with it. Jack could delete it! Twitter could delete it! Twitter could make that URL host a page that says "NFTs are dumb". You own the NFT itself.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/22/jack-dorsey-sells-his-first-...

> According to “Valuables,” the tweet itself will “continue to live on Twitter,” but the winning bidder would own the NFT, “signed and verified by the creator,” like a virtual autograph.
I give it another month. Hosting the Winter Olympics is guaranteed to bring in some Omicron where at which point it'll all be over, regardless of the precautions they have in place.
It's difficult fo the average person to conceive what an NFT IS. Once one crosses that bridge, seeing how useless they are is easy. This problem is far more common than you might thing. It has relevance far beyond NFTs.
NPM is not a trusted repository, I think. There are no checks done to the content of the packages uploaded by users. It's up to you to make sure that what you add to your project doesn't contain malware/vulnerabilities.

If you use a lockfile, downloading a package from NPM or directly using a random URL is conceptually the same, since they are both untrusted sources. Having a lockfile will ensure that if you download a dependency to review it for vulnerabilities, later re-downloads of the dependency will not have changed files.
If that’s their point, I encourage them to re read my original comment. It makes ownership cryptographically verifiable, and easily transferrable. You can even do more! Fractionalization to distribute ownership rights among groups, bearer authentication to web services for owners of tokens, etc.
One program to rule them all: Or the exe as an extension of the thinking organ
Hi all,
I've been thinking very deeply lately about GUIs, command lines, life, leisure, and work. These interests intertwine surprisingly often, especially if you have a poor memory, frantic excitability, and aptitude for creation and creativity.

My current setup is using an amazing AutoHotKey tool called 'Radial Menu 4' by Learning One. That coupled with 'Adventure' by Algumist, which has a built in GUI maker, provides for a complete workspace in one executable.

This here is the foundation for my portable fortress, which allows me to call and command anything from anywhere. Anything I can dream up of doing on a computer, I am able to do, store, and replicate in the future.

This allows me to store all my previous memories in life, as well as to store, sort and categorize all my work hacks and exploits. And naturally all my macros. All with amazing ad-hoc detail and notations/markings.

My question is, has anyone here delved into anything similar - that is, one single exe which can infinitely extend itself - safely and persistently. This is the best solution I have found thus far and it truly augments my ailing brain, whilst giving me the complete power and versatility of command lines and GUIs.

I am extremely interested to hear about other all-in-one power centres!

[0] Https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=12078

[1] https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=89901
That would have been my guess too, but it doesn't preclude the experiment. I personally think there's more to it than pure enforcement. Coherent standards for what counts as an invention, and a well defined expiry term, are two things that attracted adherence to the patent system. Without them, patents would be too much of a mess to enforce. Those things have evolved over time within the existing patent system, and depend on not only statute but also case law. I don't see how anything like that can build up independent of having a robust government operating over the long term.

On the other hand we already have "copyright without enforcement" for recorded music, via file sharing.

Disclosure: I have 20 patents.
That's right, no wasted man hours or pointless nonsense in the blockchain world. Side note, got a hot tip on an ICO I can invest in?
Working for a startup I at least say it in a different way. 'It might be trash, but it's running and generating millions of dollars of value'.
previous you laid the groundwork for the work current you is doing. be kind. :P

if current you is always considering future you, then previous you will no longer be the bad guy when future you becomes current you.

tl;dr: pay it forward to your future self.
Exactly right!. Some people take their own example from a privileged position and claim that everyone can get same treatment/service.
gih-PAIZHE
> might be exaggerating just a tad

Over the course of my last job, I've read over (but not far over) 200 scientific papers. Of those, I've rejected about three quarters because even the algorithm's description was enough to inform a reader that it would not work (assuming the reader understands the content well). The remaining quarter I've implemented in code and run, and of those runs I can count on a single hand how many algorithms even came close to doing what they promised.

Writing this down, you are right that this is not cause to dismiss most papers as "probably fiction". It's uncharitable and a better reflection of how salty I am about the amount of work that went into sorting through and implementing all of that (mostly to absolutely zero results) than anything else :)

> simply handwaves away a number of crucial edge cases

That does also happen, but without those edge cases you can presumably still see the algorithm working as it should given the right inputs. From there it is a matter of refinement to come to an implementation that is okay - this I would count as a success.
You could add something like that, but I suspect the new default behaviour would then break a number of programs (in particular things that use reflect and unsafe). There aren't many guarantees around this kind of usage but in practice the go devs are pretty reluctant to make changes that are known to break things without a very good reason, even in things where there's not a formal compatability promise.
"better outcomes" when talking about health should be things like 5 year cancer Survival rates, Wait time for Surgery, Wait time for Heart Stints, 5 year heart Attack Survival rates, Wait time for Specialist Care, etc

Not bankruptcy statics, or costs
IMO the benefit to users is the ability of self custody and the benefit to businesses is that you can easily plug in to an existing ecosystem. Do you really want to spend time developing your own version of various things like marketplaces and trading for your platform or do you want to just make an NFT and utilize the existing ecosystem around them.
Interesting. Those figures actually do not agree with the amount that the Dutch CBS reports, the CBS figures are much worse than the 12% undercount reported in this paper. But the paper is from a while ago already so maybe that explains the discrepancy.
I always try to approach all code, even my own code as “lets improve this”.

I tell the junior developers to “Write code like you have to come back in a decade with no context”

When mentoring I also suggest the most important quality is a “think skin and an open mind”.

Your code always sucks. It’s a time -vs- constraint issue as the author mentions. As context changes, code must adapt. That’s why I’m not worried about AI any time soon.
URSS is the French term.
Nice list! SpaceX is listed twice - not sure if intentional. Would nominate Lillium as an entry:

https://lilium.com/
Like the old joke:

Debugging is like a murder mystery where you're simultaneously the investigator, the victim, and the murderer.
> Why would fact checking have an influence on lobbying?

Some would say, if a senator doesn't believe in climate change that's a question of fact, and if they merely received better advice they'd change their opinion.

A cynical person, on the other hand, would say they know full well that climate change is real but they've accepted money to pretend they believe otherwise. In that case, no amount of independent advice will change their minds, as it is not a question of facts but of money.
"are like a title to a house"

They are the opposite of a title to a house.

The most important function of the 'Title To the House' is that you own the house.

That's the whole point of the title.

An NFT is a homeless person selling you a 'certificate' that gives you 'ownership' of the 'Brooklyn Bridge'.
Skynet’s Approach to Building a Better Web3
If I own the title to a house, I can, among other things:

* Live there

* Remodel it

* Landscape it

* Rent it out

* Etc.

What, beyond selling it, can I do with my new NFT? What does it even mean to own it, if my right to copy is no greater or less than anyone else's?
In 1973, ‘Soylent Green’ envisioned the world in 2022. It got a lot right
This sounds like a very viable option, especially if you make it easy for someone to expense the copy of the book. I don't see how adding an option can really annoy the existing readers too much; perhaps you could make it MIT licensed for purchasers?

You may also want to consider the legacy - many wonderful texts and code has been lost to time because the author passed on and the heirs didn't bother continuing to maintain/make it available, and without being able to contact someone, nothing can be done. Perhaps an "abandonware clause" that X years after publication the code can be considered BSD licensed?
Not even that.

A house drawn with a crayon can be considered an artwork or may have sentimental value.

You also have clear ownership of that artwork that you can defend in court.

You will also not loose "ownership" the moment the business that certifies it goes out of business or looses their database to ransomware.
you need to check gridcoin.us using energy to help scientific projects do computational is both satisfying and rewarding
>Would you go as far as quarantining entire blocks of 500 apartments based on one positive covid test, and not letting people out even to buy food?

If the consequences that will come down upon you are severe enough, you'd probably recommend quarantining entire blocks of 500 apartments as well.
Boy, this is nostalgic. My dad had one of these, and I remember writing BASIC programs on it. Nothing of value, but it sure did impress dad!
Did this in a startup, turned out to be the CEO's code and he was not happy. Not everyone understands the traditions.
I like the idea of public blockchains because it gives anyone an opportunity to record a message that is persisted and visible globally.

That doesn't necessarily make it worth much, but the utility of it is great.

Want to make a declaration, and be able to prove you said X on Y date? Just create a transaction on the blockchain with your message and you have millions of nodes committing it to a public ledger.

The current NFT craze seems more like a simple money grab, but I still hope the technology finds a way to survive and become mainstream.
Who cares if people "scoff"? The point of a tax is not to affect someone's emotions. The point of a tax is to affect their behavior and collect their money. If that tax affects their planning and finances (aka they recognize it as a cost of doing business), then you achieved your goal.
The competition seems to be real, though?
>They're a monopsony, so actually get absolutely gouged by the pharmaceutical companies.

You've got that exactly back to front. NHS's immense buying power lets them negotiate lower prices for drugs, exactly as medicare used to (before pharma lobbying stripped them of that power).

Pretty much any trade deal negotiations with the US involve the UK being asked to dial down NHS buying power on behalf of pharmas by making hospitals responsible for purchasing.

>As a percentage of GDP, it's roughly the same as most other western countries.

50% of the US - not because the UK is especially efficient but because the US healthcare is essentially legalized extortion.

>I'm not sure how much more money the UK general public really thinks the UK government can come up with to keep giving the NHS "more!" money. There's a limit to how much people can be taxed.

The UK public adores the NHS and is one of the few things polls say that people would be happy to fund with tax raises. It's very very popular. In no small part because we can see how much of a racket the US is.

The ruling party does not like it, however, which is why it has been slowly degrading service over time as preparation for full privatization in 10-15 years. Part of this has been done by handing over chunks of the NHS to be run privately and incompetently by friends and donors of the party. The problems caused by this backdoor privatization will later be "fixed" with privatization. Whatever the problem, privatization will forever be the answer.

The tories argued for an American style healthcare system in 1948 and while they give tacit acknowledgement of the popularity of the NHS their views havent changed (Christopher Chope is a good bellwether of their more unsightly "hidden" views), they still want a US style system.
I'm talking out of my ass here, but it doesn't sound like you are trying to rewrite it, but rather refactor it in place. This often takes much longer than a proper rewrite in my experience.
> It's an asset that can easily be used as a currency using technology like payment channels or rollups.

That's true of any asset. You miss the main point about what makes a currency a currency. Bitcoin, for example, is massively deflationary to the point of someone having spent $800 million on a pizza [1]. People are also hoarding (hodling) crypto... like an asset.

> Social recovery wallets make this much easier

You can recover a wallet but what does it matter if someone has drained it? I guess it matters if the wallet is tied to certain smart contracts. This also matters for so-called Web3 identities.

Any such recovery mechanisms are also an attack vector.

> Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chains exist

I'm well aware of PoS (vs PoW). For years there's been a lot of hand-waving how PoS will fix everything. PoS just seems to trade one set of problems for another. Whereas PoW has an economic incentive (ie mining new coins) to maintain the blockchain, PoS doesn't. I've heard the analogy that PoS is like a presidential election where only the richest can vote.

> sadly, most people in the space have lost sight of this and are focused on getting rich

This is the only force behind crypto. Many are obsessed at jumping on the next Bitcoin so you see people jumping on NFTs, having wallets with 300+ different coins in them, etc. If the belief that crypto will only go up in value is the only thing propping up the network what happens when that belief goes away/ Every bubble can burst.

[1]: https://www.complex.com/life/2019/05/man-who-spent-800-milli...
The more domesticated the animal is, the dumber it tends to be. Wild animals, or even strays, have to think to survive. I wonder if this also translates to humans given the articles about IQ peaking in the previous century.
Cronyism is the logical conclusion of capitalism.
> Not OP. But it's becoming increasingly clear (to me, at least) that data about reality has been lost.

Are you claiming that death counts are incorrect and data about deaths have been lost?
Fair enough, I don't think of generics as quite existing yet so I haven't started considering them yet.

I suspect in practice we're not going to see a lot of structs with a bajillion generics in them, though. Generics are going to solve the problems the Go developers said they will solve but there's still just enough friction in them (particularly the inability to introduce new types in methods) that I expect it will not be practical to create C++-like libraries of generic things that take generics that take generics as arguments, and in practice, "stick the small number of generic things (most likely one) at the end of the struct" will mostly cover the bases.

(I have no problem saying that if you need the n'th degree in performance, you shouldn't have picked Go. I think it has a great bang-for-the-buck ratio, but it definitely does not occupy the "best possible performance" slot.)