skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=molecular+weight+caffeine “Caffeine/Molar mass
194.19 g/mol”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(unit) “The mole is defined as exactly 6.02214076×10²³ elementary entities”. 194.19 / 6.02214076e23 calculates one molecule is about 3.2246008e-22 g ~322 yoctogrammes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

“The Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds empty. Its external tank weighed 78,100 pounds empty and its two solid rocket boosters weighed 185,000 pounds empty each. Each solid rocket booster held 1.1 million pounds of fuel. The external tank held 143,000 gallons of liquid oxygen (1,359,000 pounds) and 383,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen (226,000 pounds). The fuel weighed almost 20 times more than the Shuttle. At launch, the Shuttle, external tank, solid rocket boosters and all the fuel combined had a total weight of 4.4 million pounds. The Shuttle could also carry a 65,000 payload.”

Edit: that’s approximately 3e-25 kg per Caffiene molecule and I’m not a chemist, but I do enjoy captivating books about chemists/chemistry like Ignition[1], PiHKAL[2], Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sacks[3].

Edit 2: From above I noticed 1 litre of liquid Hydrogen is unexpectedly light at 0.15604 kg and one litre of liquid Oxygen is similarly heavier at 2.517 kg - I hope you find more things to add that challenge our intuitions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29006010

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30827112

[3] https://www.chemistryworld.com/review/uncle-tungsten-memorie...
And here is a 1932 interview with Elihu Thomson (co-founder of GE) in which he discusses reading this very book as a child
https://youtu.be/Ik5BE5yMn4A?t=206
The school can help their kids. There is no reason to distress the parents over bad grades.
yeah. i was thinking about this a bunch at the start of the pandemic. what about building a video/audio conferencing system that focused on the psychophysical aspects of calls... things like reducing latency or mixing/synchronizing multiple channels over distances.

problem is that there's a fair bit of fixed delay. a/d and d/a have fixed minimum latencies, as do codecs (although i think there's been focus and improvement there over the years), and then there is, of course, the public internet with its various hiccups that are often smoothed over with additional buffering/latency.

i do wonder how much energy has been put into reducing perceived latency and the psychophysical aspects though. (also a very interesting domain)

hard to beat the latency of a local analog signal though!
The bloat mainly comes from the fact that HTML/JS/CSS are not extensible or only to a primitive degree. I don't care about what was intended or not, the point is that the model fails since almost two decades.

The separation of concerns doesn't hold and is failing us all the time, HTML is not just information structure, it is also interactivity and layout. CSS is rigid, complex and inexpressive. One often has to at least generate it and sometimes manipulate the DOM via JS to build even simple visual constraints and relations.

Why do the specs of the languages keep growing? Some of it is what you said about programming culture, but the more fundamental problem is that we're dealing with an entirely inappropriate, inextensible model that we keep on patching.

> That's not what would happen. Think of the worst, ugliest, most sprawling spaghetti codebase you've ever seen.

> Everything would look like that. Everything.

That's exactly what we have now pretty much everywhere, but with extra layers, workarounds and patches on top. It's not good!

Don't get me wrong though. I love the web - and all of this is hindsight. The above is maybe just wishful thinking and fantasy.
To a lesser extent pretty much every formula 1 car can go into these types of lists. A huge amount of engineering and art goes into them and it better be ready a 9AM in the pre-season test.
I think it does have fundamental value. A stock's fundamental value is in its expected lifetime returns. For a home, it's the value of having shelter. Some areas are better to have shelter than others (favorable climate, access to a job center, etc).
I can't believe all they were doing was validating the email, if that's true. Virtually every town, city, borough, county, etc. across the country has a police/sheriff's department, sometimes as small as a few people. Even a few private companies have them.

Sure the NYPD, FBI, etc. are going to (theoretically) have top security, but if any LEO anywhere in the country is good enough, just hack some podunk PD that exists solely to generate ticket revenue and has no IT department, no 2FA, no security training.
Thanks! Macroexpanded:

An Intuitive Guide to Linear Algebra (2012) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22416319 - Feb 2020 (102 comments)

An Intuitive Guide to Linear Algebra - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8920638 - Jan 2015 (51 comments)

An Intuitive Guide to Linear Algebra - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4633662 - Oct 2012 (115 comments)
I doubt there is any router on the market today that operates on 2.4 Ghz by default. Some don't even have it as an option. So everyone with a Wi-Fi network in their house is already using the 5 Ghz band. And while range is a problem (in a lot of cases it isn't, considering modern city apartments are tiny and walls are made of cardboard), having multiple access points doesn't really fix it unless you have them scattered literally every few meters in your house. Heck I'm pretty sure I won't get a 1.5 Gbit/sec connection even if I put my router on the same table as my laptop.
What mental health issues do you think parents will have from their child’s grades?
Point of order, evolution took a lot more than a billion years to arrive at generalised intelligence if you start it from first principals (ie abiogenesis), which seems like the most apt comparison to us starting from some sand and teaching it to count, then somehow inventing AGI.

Unicellular life emerged about 4 billion years ago.

FWIW, it then took about 2 billion years to come up with sexual reproduction, and then another half billion years to invent multicellular life, and then about 1.5 billion years to discover us.
It was a reference to an infamous incident where Linus Sebastian accidentally removed his DE when trying to install Steam via APT.
There's no actual new theory here, just the same ideas Kurzweil said in the late 90s re-hashed.

It's pure conjecture when AGI will actually happen. GPT-3 and Transformers are impressive but still many orders of magnitude away from human performance.

By now, we have lots of examples of technological problems where the last 1% is orders of magnitude harder than the first 99%.
Gee. You're a bundle of fun.
I don't know anything about how the medicinal framework and supply was then

Its still interesting how too big of a dose and sleeping in heat has you in perpetual fear of edibles nearly 10 years later

As opposed to the correct dose

Like I absolutely think your experience is valid, it seems out of place to share a scary anecdote in a thread that assumes people are taking something within their tolerance range
I'm not personally in favor of sizing punishment based on the outcome as opposed to based on the action. I'm not sure how it serves society other than some sort of sense of vindication to kill all these people.
The author is simply not very good at defending against these scams.

A. Fraudulent charges are YOUR BANK's problem, not yours. There is no reason to take any risk or share any information. You can agree that charges are fraudulent, but that's the endpoint of your responsibility.

B. Don't give out any information to an inbound caller. None. (except to acknowledge fraudulent charges)

C. Don't try to figure things out. You don't need to reason through it. This author spends SO MUCH time trying to reason out whether this is or is not a scam call. WHY??? Just hang up and move on. If it makes you feel better, you can always call you bank back.

"Putting all of this together, the scales started to tip toward this potentially being a scam call, but I still wasn't certain. It was all circumstantial and conjecture, and a lot of it seemed very legit, plus the difficulty of accurately putting together the information needed to make an attack like this against me without also including strategic disinformation that would tip me off about where they got their data. I needed more information. It was time to push back on this."
>>WHAT??? Why do you need to push back? What's the point? Hang up!

"So, I was immediately suspicious, and started asking technical questions; "
>> NOW you're suspicious? Again, why ask technical questions here. Who cares? Move on!

This author spends FAR FAR too much time trying to outsmart the scammer - and in the process gets outsmarted himself.

Edit: Nevertheless, I give the author a WHOLE LOT OF CREDIT for being willing to post this. I'm sure he was a bit embarrassed, but sucked it up for the greater good and education of all of us. Thanks!
Git was "heavily influenced" by BitKeeper.
I can’t for the life of me ever imagine putting any software licensed AGPL in anything that is client facing or customer facing. _Maybe_ as something that manages data for other software (e.g., an AGPL alternative to POEditor). _Maybe_ if it’s something that we run 100% as something that can just be used and doesn’t require any software development on our part.
If you need more space you can just nak the page a bit taller. It's all digital anyway.
I’m less interested in seeing grades than actual tests and other assessments. That’s where the real feedback is.
Wildfires and deforestation have consequences. Is not a difficult concept to grasp. Farmers still keep doing the same and expecting a different outcome.
> I personally think AGI is far off, but always assumed it was an inevitability.

Why? We might get taken out by a meteor tomorrow. I agree that, in principle, AGI is possible. But there's lots of things that are in principle possible that will never happen.

We have general intelligence but it took billions of years of evolution for us to get here. In some sense those billions of years of evolution are still with us, in every cell in our bodies. Maybe all of those years of learning are necessary for general intelligence. Trying to find a shortcut may yield impressive results in narrow circumstances but I doubt it will be generally intelligent in the way people and animals are.
All you gotta do is feed people's delusions and racism
I mean I agree, but a third of philosophers subscribe to dualism, so I wouldn't be so quick to write the whole thing off.
Could this be related to party lines?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony)

This is similar to the other answer regarding answering a different phone in the same house, but perhaps more necessary if sharing a line with neighbours. Distinctive ringtones may have made this phone line non-disconnection behaviour unnecessary though.

I’ve never experienced a party line - but they sound ridiculous (and fun).
>A 1% decline in supply can have an enormous impact on price, because price is set at each instant by the marginal buyer and seller.

I think this is where "elastic" vs "inelastic" demand makes a big difference.
British scientists designed a lot of radar tech that their American counterparts simply couldn't get to work properly (when the technology was basically handed to the Americans for free).

A lot of them directly attribute this to the Americans scientists not being at risk of being invaded.
The phrasing in the press release makes it sound like this is some sort of intrinsically grave offense, but it's quite possibly an innocent mistake. It sounds like this guy's colleague switched companies from one where they were cleared to one where they were not, but they continued to communicate about classified stuff.

Maybe that meant Unkenholz emailed a PDF marked TOP SECRET to his colleague in order to help some foreign entity harm US interests (obviously a terrible thing to do and worth being outraged about). But it could have also been him sending an email along the lines of "What SD cards did you order for [classified widget]? We're making more of them and I want to be sure I get all the same parts that you did for the prototype?"

Both cases violate the letter of the law, but locking a human being in a cage for a decade or more over the second one seems like a horrific misinterpretation of the concept of justice. Wish the press release was clearer on what side of the line this case falls on.
Seems like GP is right then about some tweaks being advisable. There's no reason why ActivityPub servers should not be able to poll and republish ActivityStreams pages if the server admin arranges for this.
> that requires abilities that computers simply do not and cannot have.

You imply brains are more than extremely complex circuitry then? I think everyone actually in tech agrees the gap is really huge right now, Yann LeCun admits machine learning is not enough on its own.

But aren't you really limiting what a "computer" could be by definition? If a computer with huge memory, interconnect between memory, huge number of different neural nets + millions of other logic programs that all communicate perfectly with each other - why could this theoretical "computer" not achieve a human level consciousness? This computer could also have many high throughput sensory inputs streaming in at all times, and ability to interact with the physical world rather than conventional machines sitting in a rack.

Also why argue that it is simply impossible, because if we don't truly understand consciousness in 2022, how can we say we can't implement it when we don't formally know what it is?

I think overestimate human intelligence, we have basic reward functions that are somewhat understood, like most animals, but these reward functions build and get higher and higher level with our complexity. Humans have sex as a major reward function, so why would a current machine in a rack "think" about things in a way that humans do.
If the child struggles in school, this will make a parent wonder about their own intelligence and the intelligence of their spouse. It would be depressing in that regard.
Unlike its stupid meat-monkey progenitors, our fictional superintelligent AI would likely be capable of vastly augmenting and enhancing its own intelligence, rather than replacing itself.
That API does seem to cover everything - location, inventory state, kills & assists, care packages, breakable walls… I think the only info you don’t get is shooting (unless that updates the inventory state?) and even if it does, direction of shots that don’t hit anything.
I appreciate the heads up. You are trying this page (https://www.crunchydata.com/products/crunchy-bridge/pricing/) and it isnt working for you?
I'm guessing you live in a very temperate region with no insects. LOL
Stories please! What did the closures do to you?

Hopefully this won't be seen as too combative, but I feel like there are a few people in the array community giving me some pretty strong conclusions that they don't really have the experience to back up (Aaron wrote[0] 17 lines of array compiler, and says the low-abstraction approach he used is the only way to develop sustainably. Cool. I wrote[1] 350 lines of array compiler following his style, and I disagree[2]). At the same time, my experience only goes so far (there's no way I would have invented the array style compiler!), and clearly you arrived at these conclusions somehow. So is there a chance you'd share the observations that led you that way?

On my end, I was actually introduced to a little object-oriented programming in J when Henry suggested using it for a simulation project. I used it, but I don't think I really got it—just a weird way to organize data. And then in college I had to learn objects-only Java. Not good. But later I worked some with Node.js, and its module system was pretty nice: no name conflicts, easy to share code! Some way into BQN development, I figured out (with some help from a Common Lisp programmer) a way to add modules with an APL-y syntax, and something magic happened. I got objects[3] too! I think I've done about as much OOP in BQN as anywhere else, and I feel like I understand it a lot better now.

So, this is my experience with Lisp-family features and APL. Fits like a glove, programming is easier and more fun. I mix and match array, functional, and object-oriented styles however I want. Did I lose coherence? When I translate my old J code it comes out shorter and cleaner and without exec (".) everywhere. But I still don't get why I should want the language I use to not support mutability rather than just default to immutability. Did I fail to understand something in J when I had the chance?

[0] https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns

[1] https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/src/c.bqn

[2] https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/implementation/codfns.html

[3] https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/doc/oop.html
Why prevent parents helping their kids if they want to?
> The singularity is anthropocentrist fiction.

This seems like an odd assertion. To believe that the singularity is possible, one first has to set aside the idea that human intelligence is unique or special. This seems the opposite of anthropocentrism.

> We can't even pin down a definition of sentience among the existing species on earth, how are we to identify it in circuit boards? We still struggle to define alive/dead! Who's to say these concepts - sentience, aliveness - are even meaningful distinctions?

This is empty rhetoric. We can't define the word "obscenity"[0], yet we create obscenities with ease.

> Fine, say the singularity is possible and it's here. And in accordance with the singularitist's religion they are (rapidly!) incomprehensibly smarter than us. Why is their next move to dominate us? Surely humans are uninteresting to such great beings. I didn't go and dominate the ants with my big alive sentient brain, I'm pretty sure they're all still under my stoop. What would killing them accomplish? What does thinking about them at all even accomplish? The ants don't matter. And neither will the humans.

First of all, let's not gloss over the fact that you have the power to obliterate the ants at any moment for any reason. The fact that you do not currently desire to obliterate them does not change the precarious nature of their situation, nor is it much of an argument in favor of us allowing ourselves to end up in a similar one.

Many people have made great arguments about why an AGI would want us dead (Superintelligence by Bostrom!), so I won't re-hash those arguments here. Suffice it to say that, even if they didn't want to destroy us, why assume that intent is a necessary condition for an AGI to kill us off? How many species have we killed off because, just like your ants, they didn't matter?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
Does a "scam prevention expert" really need to read that fine print to know not to provide a one-time code to an inbound caller?
How many companies are running Rust nightly in production?
It's also stunning to think about how many people legit rely on humanitarian aid to stay alive, and if things break down to the point where that starts to dry up then that has a big effect on those populations.
U.S. Probes Meeting Between Activision CEO and Option Buyer
yeah. one wifi router (or ap if you want) per room (or on per two rooms). In a mesh network. Interconnected via wireless (not regular wifi).

this is the way.

Or you can plug a cable in your notebook and be happy.
I’m worried about AGI.

I will make everything very simple. All of AI industry and research boils down to one thing: mining algorithm space. We set up programs that search algorithm space automatically until they find one that demonstrates desirable behavior. And all the progress in recent years boils down to this: we have hit veins of intelligence in algorithm space that have exceeded what we thought possible.

If you think you know what’s going to happen next because leading edge algorithm X has properties Y and limitations Z then you are lost. We are mining algorithm space and we keep striking veins. Money is being poured into mining and it is a fact that we will keep hitting veins.

General intelligence is probably a broad category. If you were to define it mathematically, there is probably more than one mathematical kernel that can underpin a generally intelligent algorithm. So the number of algorithms that are generally intelligent are probably much higher than intuition would lead you to believe. Eventually we will strike a GI vein.

Again, if you think AGI will do X or do Y then you are lost. It will only do one thing: it will change the economic equation of life on this planet drastically and permanently. It will be the worst thing that has ever happened in terms of human well-being.

If we took control of the fabs and enacted limits on processor feature size we could slow the mining enough to find a final solution. It sounds silly until you realize that it’s truly the world at stake.
How the Games Industry Hurts People
Replace it with: people, people, people.
I've heard of some of these words. :-D
It depends on the audience. As a young developer, talking to the “old guys” could be somewhat intimidating. You haven’t proven yourself and worry about ruining what little credibility you may have. As your career progresses, and you become one of the new “old guys”, it’s talking to management that can derail you. I’ve seen two patterns here. The first is to talk to them as if they were your technical peer (usually they aren’t). If they fail to understand, it’s on them. The other approach is to tailor your explanation to the individual by watching for non-verbal cues, like the deer in the headlights look. You will necessarily stumble a bit in the process. Over time, you’ll learn the approach for each individual and how to infer the approach for new individuals. And then? Well, many of us become managers ourselves and slowly, though too fast, we are no longer peers but rather one of those people for whom the technical folks have to tailor the response. It can be challenging at times. But generally, I’ve not found it to be a “brain problem”, rather an experience problem.
I think the person in GP's story objected to the fact that the network connection she was told to use was not even limited internally to that law firm, but was astonishingly just whatever semi-private "building wifi" network happened to exist in the (presumably shared) building. If I were a lawyer and cared about client confidentiality, that would at least give me pause, regardless of whether the physical network was wired or wireless.
Your skepticism rests on the assumptions that a) we would recognise AGI when we create it, b) we would be smart enough to contain it.

I'm not at all sure that a) is true, and I'm certain that b) is not true. We can't even prevent other dumb humans from breaching our technological fortresses.
Popehat notes that this kind of reporting often oversells the likely sentence:
https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

So it’s very possible this could end with a far less significant penalty, depending on the circumstances.
Part of being an expert is recognizing your limitations, flaws and vulnerabilities. This was not an expert.
I was wondering why this was here, figuring most on HN know already about this. However I did chuckle reading to the end; in case others missed it:

> At the 94th Academy Awards, Chris Rock congratulated Denzel Washington on his performance in The Tragedy of Macbeth, saying the name of the Scottish play aloud in the Dolby Theatre. Moments later, Rock was slapped by Will Smith after making a joke about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Viewers, including playwright Lynn Nottage, quickly took to social media to joke that Rock had suffered the curse of the Scottish play