skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's astounding how bad satnav apps are in general. First of all, google maintains a monopoly on apps that work with Android Auto. Using either of them, you'll inevitably come along a route it's guiding you down which is impassible for some reason (roadworks, too narrow, etc)

That's not really a problem in itself, it can't be omniscient. The problem is that there's no way of dealing with it. You turn off, to take the only route available... and the apps reroute you to the same road you can't take. You then have to manually navigate until it gets the hint and routes you down a passable road.

Maps is also heavily dependent on a stable internet connection, strobing and not letting you start a journey until it's connected. Caching your local map is a manual step you have to do repeatedly.

If you stop for fuel & disconnect your phone while you go to pay (as the station might recommend) then you might find it has discarded your journey by the time you get back with no path to re-joining it. Fine if you're going to a single destination and have a good internet connection. Not fine if it's multiple points or - as tends to happen in the middle of nowhere - you can't connect to the internet.

Multiple points are a problem in themselves though. The apps support destination-based routing but are completely foreign to the concept of journey-based routing. In 2022, if you want to drive a scenic route along a given road, your best bet is to take a notepad and jot down the path yourself.

And of course the voice assistants are broken. Garbage. It's absurd we convinced ourselves they stopped being awful.
Only when using unstable ones or those with edgy names ;)
Yeah, I still don't understand how Microsoft lost the suit back in the day just for including IE as a default web browser in windows, whereas apple can ban all web browsers but their own and it's fine.
If I go down to the local farmers market and open a stall selling fake Gucci bags, with signs saying I sell Gucci bags, but on behalf of my supplier, A. Scammer, will the police leave me be then?

Bezos' dichotomy of at once being supplier and "simply a marketplace" when the rules favour a certain facade is absolutely outrageous.
Really good Planet Money on this here:

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/04/767095401/the-baumol-effect-a...
How could that work out? Low quality sites usually have more juicy ad spots?

More seriously: incentives are stacked against search quality these days. Poor results means more trips into ad laden wastelands, and more returns to the ad laden search results page.

Giving people the result up front and center would directly affect quarterly profit I am afraid.

At least this is the model that makes most sense to me.

The next most probably is machine learning is already out of control and the people who created it left.

Edit: wild speculation of course.
I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. When I hear people say "vaccine passport" I assume they mean "COVID-19 vaccination documentation". Is that a correct interpretation, or does a vaccine passport mean something more? If it is just "COVID-19 vaccination documentation", has there been a push to not allow the paper documentation? I've been primarily using my paper documentation without issue. As far as I'm aware, digital access to your vaccination status is simply a nice to have redundancy.
The enclosure pricing seems optimistic. Or is it possible to get a mold designed, cast, and parts manufactured at ~ $1000 for 1000 pieces?
Establishing the minimum number of guesses needed to (always) win Wordle
Well, the “anxieties and neuroses of society” are the only reason we're still forced to wear cloth masks in certain places, so...
but this time it's different, for the gas marbles referenced in the article i mean.
The design & feedback was driven together with a portable implementation: Portable Common Loops. The team developed that implementation to validate their design ideas and to get practical feedback from a broader community.
This is a blithe statement - the browser isn't downloaded whenever a user navigates to the page. 1/6th of a MB for a page this simple is pretty substantial.
Don’t give web developers any ideas.
It’s the ads. The way Brin and Page phrased it in their 1998 paper, they considered ad-oriented search engines to be lower quality. They were going to be more academic. They thought that there was lots of user data to mine in search…for academic purposes. Then innovation #2 at the actual startup was the ad auctions and that was the beginning of the end, all the way back at the beginning.

I’ve recently read a lot about hedge funds, and it’s astounding how many scientists literally say, “I don’t think hedge funds add value to society, I wouldn’t work there.” And then the firm slides this check across the table, and they didn’t even realize a single check could have that many zeroes, and they join the firm and stay forever. That’s what happened with Google and all the rest.
More than two-thirds of omicron cases are reinfections, English study suggests
You mean, like a smartphone or a portable console ?
Could you not phrase this in a more respectful way?
I think GP is a sarcastic comment.
In low population density areas you can generally walk around freely in nature, and the denser population get, the more restricted things are.

This is not because Norwegians are civic minded altruists and Singaporeans selfish jerks. It mostly reflects what is practical.
It's realpolitik. By the numbers Apple is worse, but Facebook has more influence over the political discourse, so they get more government pressure. The point of the pressure isn't to make them do something good (e.g. federate, or divest Instagram and WhatsApp and stop buying competitors), even though it could be.

The real point is to demonstrate the ability to penalize them. Then if they do what the government wants, i.e. censor the people the government wants censored, their problems will go away. A slap on the wrist instead of a breakup.
Tobacco and sugar aren't contagious. If you want to continue down this path of false equivalence, many places have essentially outlawed second-hand smoke.
Better yet, AirPods Pro 4 will allow you to adjust the volume of the warning tone, AirPods Pro 5 will allow you to customize it. AirPods Pro 6 will undo that but allow you to disable the tone and use haptic feedback. Then AirPods Pro 7 will allow you to adjust the volume of the warning tone, and customize it.
Different times. Different concerns.
I SAW THAT TOO! LOL
Excluding children from education is the exact same thing as excluding minors from consuming alcohol
> You never actually gave a reason for that assertion.

As discussed elsewhere in this thread, all interventions carry some risk of bad unintended things happening. You can get killed in car accident driving to court, but we don't eliminate court.

> What is the difference between "disincentive" and "punishment" here?

Traditionally, punishment is seen as having up to three components: deterrence, retribution, and/or incapacitation.

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/reasons-...

I'm using "disincentive" here to emphasize that (1) only deterrence is sought, (2) the deterrent is created before the deterred action rather than implemented later, (3) the deterrent is "bound up" with the deterred action in a particularly tight way. There is more to say about (3), but it would take a while to unpack, and I think (1) and (2) are sufficient for this discussion.

(I'm happy to use better or more standard terminology if it exists.)

> would you be OK with replacing the physical barriers with, say, spikes that would tear up a car's tires and instantly cause an accident, should the car try to cross the line?

Only insofar as the effectiveness went up so much that the total harm caused was less.

The spikes sound scary and bring a grisly accident to mind, and intuitively we know that in the real world drivers would sometimes hit them by accident. So let me try an alternative hypothetical that may help illustrate my position better.

Suppose we are trying to build a humane prison and we need to find a way to keep people inside. First note that, traditionally, a fence with razor wire on top is used as a disincentive even though we all agree it would be terrible to punish escapees by cutting their hands with a razor. And say there is some rate of prisoners escaping (1 per decade, or whatever) with the fence. Now, imagine we could replace the fence with an extremely deep pit around the prison that would be fatal to fall into. (For the sake of the thought experiment, we assume counterfactually that the pit is as cheap as a fence and introduced no other issues.) Suppose the pit has a railing around it so no one falls in accidentally, and also that it is much more effective at preventing escape because essentially no one bothers to try.

Death by falling is even more unreasonable as a punishment for trying to escape, yet the situation seems better than the razor wire. The reason is that the pit is a very effective disincentive (a deterrent created prior rather than after the fact) and the total harm (number of escapees plus injury to attempted escapees) is much less.
I think it's because the case hinged on the outcome, not on the practice itself. The suit alleged that Intel had "killed" AMD with this practice and brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. The issue is, Intel is getting their asses handed to them right now by AMD so the argument seems pretty hollow in 2022.

I am not saying this is good or bad, but that's the intuition behind the reversal I think.

EDIT: Please don't shoot the messenger, I am just offering a conjecture, I am not even European or American.
Persistent in this case doesn't mean forever. It goes away when you stop smoking for a while.
> Moscow is in Europe my friend

Well, if you're going to get all pedantic, Moscow is actually in Asia.
Ordered in Dec'21 at robu.in. They are still processing the order
I see the creator understands economics:
"Low Price! It costs $10,000 USD to build one of these. The ten thousandth one costs $15"
I love the AirPods but stopped using it because of what I have been reading about EMF radiation emitted constantly even when not in use by AirPods. I still need to read-up more about it till then I am using the wired headphones.

https://www.macintoshhowto.com/hardware/extreme-emf-exposure...
Windows subsystem for PalmOS
> I cannot recall another example in my lifetime of a global populous all agreeing to purchase a pharmaceutical company's medical product - not just once, but 2-3x per person - in under two years' time.

Well this is the first major global pandemic in a century, so that would stand to reason, no? Most of the world received the polio vaccine within a few years of its discovery btw
I really want to read those notes you've written (I've sent you an email).

Paul Graham, Patrick Collison and Vitalik Buterin all have this ability to express ideas in an extremely deep yet clear and concie way.

It's one thing to do this individually, but what amazes me is their ability to scale out this communication sty;e to their entire organization. If you read any of the blog posts by YC, Stripe and the Ethereum Foundation you'll understand what I mean. You can also see how it stands so far ahead of most other companies.

A recent example that comes to mind for anyone interested: Ethereum Foundation's blog post explaining why they're moving away from calling their upgrades "Eth2"and just calling it "Eth" instead.

https://blog.ethereum.org/2022/01/24/the-great-eth2-renaming...

As a founder myself, I really want to figure out the tactics to scaling clear and effective communication to an entire team.
The lightning to 1/8" adapter is <$10 and very small. Works 100% of the time.
My only point was to provide correction to your erroneous statement.

>I guess that’s a theoretical possibility for a different virus

Im not trying to claim it applied to omicron, current vaccine efficacy, that we should halt vaccinations, or any other strawman you are trying to put up.

You can simply acknowledge the correction
> ... that widely improves wired compatibility.

"Wired compatibility" was ubiquitous before. It didn't have room to "improve". Removing the jack is what broke "wired compatibility".

Needing a dongle for sth is not an "improved" form of using it, when you could have just used it without a dongle.
Is it really a public health nightmare? What data is there to show that vaccine passports are effective at reducing spread or hospitalizations?
Pachyderm (YC W15) is hiring data science bloggers
Completely an aside:

USB dongles piss me off; specifically the Logitech Mouse USB dongles:

Why the heck hasnt a single manufacturer included the USB Dongle radio IN the mobo?

So with slim laptops you have few USB ports.

I currently am typing this on an HP Omen flagship gaming laptop... It has ONE USB-C port, which is under-powered (I have a USB-C Hub, that requires an external USB-C Power source... so I have to plug the uSB-C Hub into my machine's C port, then plug the power USB-C <--> USB-B port consuming TWO of my USB ports on my machine...

I plug in multiple USB-based monitors as well - and I can carry it all in my backpack...

But we need MORE USB ports than fewer... and Mice should not consume a port.

BT mice have never been subjectively responsive enough for me. For example, I can test-map-out my BT environment in my home by connecting to the BT speaker and moving around and it skips....

/rant
The old jack was also more solidly connected than the current inclement weather port (sorry, can't remember ifit's lightning, thunderbolt, or wizard strike).
Wait till they hear about actual passports!
Yeah, that's actually one of the reasons I didn't go for the 3rd gen even though they were out when I got mine

I can't use that through a toque, whereas with the 1st gen I can double tap the side of my head through the toque and it pauses
Very cool, and very reasonable pricing. Nice work!
If we had perfect robots creating almost limitless "free" labour, what would we as a civilization do? Ban the technology? Descend into a struggle to own the technology. Or forge a better and different society for ourselves
I submit that the Amish have been successful in their efforts because they have a unifying transcendent value system that gives their group cohesion and purpose. Secular efforts will quickly dissolve into warring sub-tribes.
That's kind of the fundamental insight here though, isn't it? Carnegie developed his libraries as a philanthropic endeavor, with the aim of supporting meritocracy in society. Google developed their library with the aim of making a shit-ton of money from advertising.

Google never was a suitable candidate for the world's authoritative librarian. Unfortunately, we'll probably need another Carnegie to displace them.
Google introduces a new system for tracking Chrome browser users
Is there any way for the government to control the issuance of crypto coins? The Fed has proposed creating a 'digital' dollar . Just not sure if its the same thing as a crypto dollar ?
So it sounds like you didn’t get vaccinated not because you don’t trust pharma but because you already were infected and don’t need the vaccine?

In any event, the risks of the vaccine are still probably much lower than the risks of a second infection, especially if you were infected more than a year ago
If the census simply enumerated the population, then I don't think there are the same level of concerns.

The data they are collecting related to demographics is beyond what is necessary for congressional apportionment. If they collected only the required data; then there would not be a need to fuzz it.
Good point. Lately I've found myself opening a thread starting a reply, then thinking do I really care much about this topic? and closing the tab. Time to take it one step further and not open the thread.
Fantasy Premier League account hack surge prompts plans to introduce extra login
Good. People have a right to be free.
Have you tried adhd meds? Probably a healthier solution than trying to constantly sleep deprive yourself, and most likely more effective as well as you then no longer handicap your mental abilities.
Thanks for your comment. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. From my own (purely anecdotal) experience, if most people had been told that their phone would be unsupported after 3 years they would have considered that strongly in their purchase. Since my experience is anecdotal it proves nothing, but my major disagreement is that you point to sales numbers as evidence that people don't care about support.

>feature that obvious(based on sells numbers) was not a factor in deciding to buy the phone or not,

I don't think those customers were informed of the limited support prior to the sale, so those sales numbers are not meaningful in this context. Also, many companies offer longer support. Google is selling Pixel as a premium phone so (in my opinion) offering only 3 years of support is a major abuse of the customer relationship.

As far as pennies per phone, I was referring to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30075970
> I think it's because the case hinged on the outcome, not on the practice itself.

Yeah it sounds like it. My understanding from the summaries is that the commission failed to quantify the damage with enough accuracy and certainty. It sucks.
The above is the text from Techcrunch. But you can see all sorts of stories when you search for shitpost and his name.

Apt word too… it like the guy that walks his dog and shits on your lawn everyday.

Im the guy that gabs the shit and throws it at his face after he walks away.
Exactly. So if I'm going to learn/use one of them, there's no clear winner, really. Both also seem to also have about the same amount of adoption (zero?).
Going by their comment history, I think this is the article's author.

You might want to make a top-level comment, like "This is the author, ask me anything".
I hate how true your second paragraph is. Google should punish sites that change the date without updating the content, but all the SEO spam is just going to automate changing content when it changes the date. And then what does Google do? Figure out how to make an AI that can understand all the indexed content and accurately determine if it's truthful?

That seems fundamentally impossible without defining trusted sources. But then that means that you're trusting that Google's trusted sources are good. And if you do think they're good, then why not just check those sources directly?

The only answer I have is to find your own sources that you trust and go to them first.
There is even more link. Anduril is founded by Palmer Luckey, of Oculus and funding the Trump trolls fame.

And guess who invested in it - Peter Thiel, of Palantir (among others) fame.
It is a spicy take. I agree that Varnish and commodity CDNs are more efficient per pageview than hitting any kind of full stack app process. Most devs can probably ignore efficiency, though. Making things fast for users will take them a long way.

My spicy take is really "in the context of full stack apps". CDNs are amazing for, like, Netflix. And Wikipedia. They're really, really good for one to many files.

With Fly, you do flip it around. And you might find out you don't really even need a cache. Rails + Postgres read replicas are pretty dang fast with one less moving piece. We have an awful lot of users who just do in process caching and hit their DB when they need to, it's pretty cool.

ESI seemed so promising when I first read about it. Then I realized I couldn't actually _use_ it anywhere. I'm still kind of aggravated at how excited it made me.
not only can, but there is evidence that current covid vaccines can only higher you chances of milder disease. The probability of you getting infection and being a spreader is the same whether you are or not vaccinated.
I would imagine at $30 it would have to compete with other devices already built
My interpretation has always been that an expat is abroad temporarily, while an immigrant intends to stay permanently.

I came to the US as an expat, but became an immigrant.

If you tend to see racism behind every raised eyebrow, you can of course also see this terminology as racist.
You could totally live your entire life playing only games with late 2000's graphics. Barely anyone "needs" even a discrete gpu even.

If the greatest car in 1900 was a Ford T and the greatest car now is a $1,000,000 Rolls Royce, it doesn't mean it makes sense to compare their price. One is a utility and the other one is the top of the top luxury. It doesn't mean cars got more expensive, it just means there's a new bigger luxury market for that type of object.
One think I don't see getting discussed in the pros and cons is the simple fact that you can't even tell what titles have been rewritten. Google gives no information in the search results to tell you what is original and what they've rewritten. This matches other trends like how it's become ever harder to discern sponsored ads from organic search results.

I used to love Google for how it presented relevant results and made it easy to discern sponsored ads. Today, I avoid Google products like the plague. (I can't escape all of them, but I'm about 90% off.)
Made me rethink self-publishing my book with #KDP. This needs to go viral so more publishers decide to use alternatives.
German Police Caught Using Covid-Tracing Data to Search for Crime Witnesses
My go to solution for such annoyances is to pass the cable through the inside of my shirt. Not the most elegant solution but saved me a lot oh headache :D
Our family of 5 lives in a certain state where politics are very one-sided.

The Census tried to move heaven and earth to contact us. We avoided them like the plague.

Imagine my surprise when i heard that our state had lost a house seat, due to being 80 people short of the required population count to keep its prior state house seat apportionment.

By avoiding the Census, we were able to change the machine of bureacuracy far better than by regular voting.

Sometimes the winning move, is really not to play.
I think this is a fascinating aspect to the overall wired-vs-wireless debate. Some people simply have a problem with wires and some don't. I have three pairs of over-the-ear wired headphones that have been with me for 7, ~10, and >20 years, respectively, and none of them have ever had any cable damage. I've never ended up with flaky wiring on a cheap pair of apple earbuds, either. The very cheap earbuds that came with my HTC G-2 did end up with flaky cables but they're an aberration in my experience. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, I really don't have any grudge against wires, but I do loathe the fidgety connectivity of bluetooth.

Of course, I'm also baffled about how everyone I know and hear about seems to be unable to keep their macbook power cable from self-destructing, and I just keep accumulating them because they never die. My favorite one is still a MagSafe 1 from, I think, 2012.

[edit: in retrospect, perhaps the fact that I have a "favorite" power cable is some kind of red flag. Re-evaluating my life...]
How to Download Everything Amazon Knows About You (It's a Lot)
Probably not a lot. But it's one of those "death by a thousand cuts" things I can't ignore in an iphone purchase. Between that and the fingerprint reader, I'm out. If they brought either back I could justify it.
Seems a bit odd to tie a developer only feature to a consumer app store. Makes it feel like WS* will move towards a streamlined consumer facing feature.
Are there any updates on this? Like any accountability or an explanation why this happened?
Absolutely agree! (Though... I suspect there may be some other caching tech in there to help handle the load, and I don't think Fly.io would be cost effective enough for HN - would be interested to know for sure though)

But if we are being honest with ourselves, HN is very much a featherweight unicorn in an ocean of lumbering behemoths. And that's part of the attraction for this particular crowd.

Would be interested in other high-profile rare cases, like HN.