skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> I think you've inadvertently shifted the goalposts. The question is, "is LaMDA conscious?". I don't think anyone proposes that LaMDA has a "general human level abstraction". Expecting it to do non-language, "human" things in order to prove that it's conscious is not necessarily a reasonable test.

As I said in my first post, I'm taking "consciousness" to mean "the ability to form certain kind of mental abstractions, particularly those involving ourselves." As such it's a type of domain agnostic intelligence, so you would expect it to be able to do _something_ other than hyper-optimize for one particular type of output.

People can use different definitions of "consciousness" if they want, but many of the other ones I've found ("internal feeling") seem vague and not particularly useful (and don't make it clear why LaMDA would be different from any other program).

> There are plenty of things a human can't do that other "simpler animal minds" can do

There are many things that humans don't have the hardware to do (though it seems like some people do have the ability to echolocate[1]). But given the hardware, humans are definitely able to make mental models of these things (people are able to use sonar, for instance).

> On the other hand, human children learn language through mimicry, which suggests that mimicry may indeed be a path to consciousness.

Children don't learn consciousness through mimicry, they learn language through mimicry. As I said before, Helen Keller wasn't unconscious before she was able to communicate. Simple mimicry in one specific domain doesn't show us that any of the underlying complex abstractions that happens in human and many animal minds are taking place.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation
> Different interaction paradigms call for different positioning of elements, different nesting, different density, etc.

I’ve challenged this on HN before, but I’ll take a different approach. Can you describe a scenario where these fundamentally can’t be achieved with the same markup? I’ve never encountered one, in over a decade of developing responsive apps and sites.
Many third party researchers have already found backdoors in other parts of Intel's CPUs, such as the Management Engine.

I very much suspect a well funded and motivated actor like the NSA could find mistakes in the microcode without needing to ask for a backdoor directly.
I'm pretty junior in terms of YOE, but I hate when I see people say things like "don't worry, I have no idea what I'm doing and I have x YOE. You're fine!" to people on the internet.

I have a decent understanding of what I'm doing, but I worked for it by doing exactly what you described in your last paragraph and then synthesizing that knowledge into an explicit process.

If you don't know what you're doing you're either bad or don't have a conscious understanding of your process. Both are not good.
I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with this article.

As a consumer, I like Apple’s App Store. In general I don’t like 3rd party apps and prefer web apps but when I do install a 3rd party app I feel that I am not loading malware. Also, when I buy books, audiobooks, and movies from Google Play I don’t mind buying from a web site and then having the content available from the apps.

I would like to see maximum support for web apps for too many reasons to list here. Apple should do better. I also don’t like Apple not holding themselves to the same privacy standards as other companies and platforms.

One thing that irritates me is not having easy access to books and movies bought from Apple on my Chromebook. I should re-check this, but except for going through the iCloud.com web portal, I am stuck. BTW, there is so much I like about the Chromebook model, especially because of built-in Linux containers.

Apple is definitely a compromise, at least in my opinion.
I think someone read my comment and decided it had no place on hn. Downvoting makes the comment less visible, ranking it lower in the page, and eventually invisible to anyone who hasn't turned show dead on. Downvotes also take away karma, potentially losing privileges and eventually being banned if everyone did as you described.
Heights are not really the problem in my case. My problem is with the plane crashing. It's completely irrational, no data take that from my brain. I need a good therapy.
My favorite excerpt from that book!
I solve problems with software and I do both. If I can copy something it is most often smarter to do just that. There is not only copying code or writing it yourself.

Find the most readable color of a font for a given background on most displays. You could do extensive research on colors for something that on the first look sounds rather trivial or find a very thoroughly worked out solution on stack exchange.

It is difficult enough to advertise self-made software when many people are looking for off-the-self solutions. So being fast and therefore affordable is quite important.

I mostly develop for embedded systems on custom hardware so ready to use solutions are rare. But if I want to visualize process data in a browser? Please give me all your thousands of dependencies Javascript.

An algorithm I implement from scratch? Very rare. This takes time and thorough testing compared to something that is already solved.
Almost tautological: because it is not “doctors are great at helping with any medical problem”. And by great I don’t mean cure anything, but give the best outcome possible with technology and budget for the person.
>Python's OO does support features like multiple inheritance, which makes it more sophisticated than e.g. Java.

I’m not sure that “more sophisticated” is the right term for multiple inheritance. Multiple inheritance create all manner of challenges in understanding code. The simplest form of multiple inheritance as it’s present in languages like Perl or C++ can create hard to debug problems (I’m not entirely certain how it works in Python).

That said, Java has (and has had) a restricted form of multiple inheritance for years through default methods in interfaces which allows the most useful aspect of MI—mixed in methods.
> purely physical processes

Everything in the universe is a "purely physical process". Everything in the universe is an arrangement of matter and energy. Biological systems are extremely mechanistic, even if highly complex. These arguments that consciousness can only arise in a biological brain all seem to hinge on us being special in some undetermined way. Biological life is wonderful, but how does it specifically have a monopoly on something?
In many cases, you approach the business with the "diagnosis" already worked out: moving companies, car rental, electronic parts, etc. In fact those businesses usually have automated or semi-automated pricing. When the business needs to evaluate you individually, they have at least a temptation to take more money than they should. That temptation is either capped by regulation or reputation in my experience.
Big (tech) company bullshit
I mean, obviously that was implied, because he didn’t. There’s only so many ways you can tell someone that “that’s not how it works”.

But if you get angry and defensive every time people point out your shortcomings you will never improve.
Having experienced this during an exchange program, without any car there, I never once felt constrained that I couldn't travel where I wanted. A great example that I wish every country aspired to emulate
Watching less TV could lower heart disease risk
His 5yo brother put 80 cows in his house in Minecraft while he was offline
Archived: https://archive.ph/qIIn0
The author has never heard of an analog computer?! If he had, I would question his honesty.
The problem with this is that if buses come rarely enough, you can optimize either for bus-train or for train-bus transition, and you could get in the unlucky part :(
We do not have the power to change it. But maybe one day there will be a social movement to make the world a fairer place. When that day comes lean into the movement, provide support, risk some of that security that you have for the possibility of a brighter future for all.

Promise yourself that you will follow through when the time comes. That is how I assuage my guilt. If the time is ever right to create meaningful change for the betterment of all, I will be there on the front lines. But the world has to wake up a little first. Until then I will just keep waiting.
Facebook to ban Ukraine if no deal on transfer of personal data to the US
> a)both the Product Manager and team were surprised,

Which doesn't mean much. I try to avoid privately siding against anyone in my company, too. It's entirely possible that his colleagues did the same and he interpreted it as siding with him. They might also haven't known the full details of the conflict.

> b)another person from another team reached out pretty soon to try to take OP on their team (having worked with op in the past)

Who most likely did not know about the conflict, either.

> c) recruiters who kept reaching out, AND op kept passing interviews till the HR part

Passing interviews is a skill not necessarily related to job performance, as discussed here quite often.

On the other hand, we know for a fact that he clearly did not handle this conflict well, and that Spotify decided not to hire him again (which might be unfair or might be due to their side of the story being different - we don't know). We also only have his impression of the impression of his colleagues for work performance and the fact that he choose to publicly post this & name the company, despite clearly not being perfectly in the right.

Not an ideal candidate in my view, but, as they say, you need to fit to the company culture - so feel free to hire him :)
It apparently went much deeper than just porn. Tumbler had a big pedo problem that they were struggling to deal with which is why Apple delisted them. So they decided that rather than try to filter legal from illegal porn, they would just ban it all.
The end point of ad blocking is neural networks analyzing the final rendered image before being shown to the user.

This blocking could be strict, or lax, where you block even non-intentional ad stuff like someone writing in a HN comment "I love X".
Coeffects: Context-Aware Programming Languages
Wrt to imposter syndrome - I often have this feeling, especially since I don't have any formal training in anything IT related.

Recently a kid showed up at work to do an internship. He's studying computer science, all kinds of advanced algorithm stuff. He's utterly clueless at even beginning to find the cause of a simple bug in a php application. Incapable of interpreting a bug report, finding the class that serves a certain route etc.

Made me really reconsider my imposter syndrome feelings.
Is anyone else tired of social media? Maybe I’m just old.
> Modern social networks, save hacker news, looks over-engineered.

How about 4chan? The UI/UX, not the content.
> The dark side of this mentality is that it creates the same situations whereby people believe their own intuitions are equal to professional scientific research. If you believe no one knows what they’re doing and all adults are just making it up as they go, why would you listen to experts instead of inserting your own opinions based on your Facebook research or some quip you saw online?

Well there's a reason to resist this notion on the grounds that knowledge is personal, not transitive. Following John Carmack on twitter does not transfer the ability to design game engines onto me, even though he surely has deep expertise in the area.

My opinions may not be the result of professional scientific research, but that is also true even if I echo the opinions of someone who claims to be a practitioner of such. At least if we accept a definition where justified true belief is necessary for knowledge. Either I know something, or I don't know it. There is no middle ground where I know something by extension of faith in an authority that claims to know it. That's the entire point of science, it isn't doctrinal! The scientific authority may well possess an ability to produce true statements through their knowledge of the topic, but I don't share this knowledge by parroting their true statements; I need to understand why in order to know.
Thank you. I'm hearing enough things along similar lines to feel odd about it.

So many people wear their impostor syndrome with pride I don't know how to handle it. It's supposed to be ok to have no idea what you are doing. Except it's not. We're living in an era where information is more abundant than ever before. Just read the manual. At least get a basic idea how that library or framework works before putting two lines together. If not for the end result then at least for intellectual pride.

It's probably partly down to age, but it's more and more common and I am uncomfortable.
> ... there's a reason why LaTeX never really threatened Microsoft Word.

Apropos of nothing, LyX[1] is a pretty good stand in depending on one's needs and tolerance.

There are some challenges if you need something that has more complex styles (e.g., customizing the Memoir book styles). These are well within the range of programmers and not super hard if you're reasonably competent and/or willing to search / read. The payoff is that you're forced into using styles instead of kludges, and you don't have to worry about layout (much) anymore.

[1] https://www.lyx.org
> Great. Even more stuff we can blame on our parents.

Yes, and why not? The point is not so much blame but making them responsible for their actions. To put the responsibility where is lay is part of healing from the trauma. To say that people should take responsibility for the trauma that other gave them will in no way help anyone heal.

My father was horrible and my mother was loving. If it were not for her I would probably be dead. I can hold my mother my mother for saving my life as much as I can my father for causing my suffering.

And we have no choice but to take responsibility for the trauma. But those who abused us? They have a choice, unless we force them into accountability by calling them out.

My brothers also abused me and that probably played a role in my mood disorder. So now they are all living fine lives and I am homeless with no health care and in and out of psyche wards. When I asked them if they could loan me $500 for a deposit on an apartment my sister said; "All you want is the money!"

:^/

It is these people that pass on the trauma, the people who think that those of us who had the trauma "should take responsibility" and do nothing to help us heal, both mentally and physically.
HN removes the HTML anchors.
The link (which I also copied below in the comments, b/c it was noticed after publishing) should be:

- https://github.com/snakers4/silero-models#text-to-speech

This link leads to the TTS section, whish contains the full list of all of the speakers and languages.
> Asking to change teams is working with the system. Getting into personal fights with your manager and escalating the battle at every opportunity is working against it.

False dichotomy. Asking to change teams is being complacent and making it someone else's problem. "escalating the battle at every opportunity" isn't an accurate summary of OPs actions.
Nice to see OSFV for platforms that are not from surplus store
> And you should not expect to be good friends or acquaintances with someone who has worked hard to overcome something because you need to remind them that part of their success is luck based.

There are entire cultures out there that acknowledge and respect that where they are today is built, partly, on random chance. Saying that you are where you are entirely on your own individual merits is just /rude/ to many. Just because yours likes to pretend otherwise doesn't make that pretense universal.
Ironically the author really needed a union rep of course.
Predatory UK Investment Terms
Not a good criteria for choosing a dentist.

Sure it is - it is about as good as anything else you might wind up with, especially if you don't know anyone in the area, don't have a dentist for whatever reason, or simply cannot afford to travel such distances.

And to be fair, you won't realistically know that someone is selling you treatments you do not need and you can always decline if you suspect such a thing. I'm guessing the gas money will almost cover a second opinion at a local dentist, honestly.

Full disclosure: I chose my doctor based on proximity. I was fairly new in the country, had no way to get references, and figured it'd be about the same risk as any other method, all of which were mere guesses. Probably the best doctor I've had.
Find a forum or other site related to your topic and make a post there.

See if you can find any subreddits related to what you are working on.

Post a "Show HN" with the site if you think it might be relevant to the community here.
If that were the case there would be no benefit in providing information to the content creator about the points their comment has received. Instead, we can determine this information is provided because the purpose of voting is to provide a "read receipt" to the creator, enabling one to know that someone has, with a reasonable degree of confidence, consumed his content. It is ultimately a poor man's analytics system.

For what reason would you want to provide analytics data to a creator when you believe their content is "bad"? As I said before, the reason one will post on HN is to have their content seen by an audience. After all, if your intent was simply to write, why not open up notepad.exe instead? The reality is that users come to HN for the audience it provides. Logically, if someone is creating low value content, you want to leave them believing that no audience is seeing their content, not feed them with information. Don't feed the trolls, as the saying goes.

There is no actual meaning given to the buttons. No rules which state that you can press them only under exacting circumstances. Paul Graham himself says that they have no meaning and you are free to use them as you please, asking only that you do not press a button until you have genuinely read the content associated with it, corroborating the idea that it is meant to be an analytics system of sorts. As you have even pointed out yourself, interpretation is left to the user pressing the button. Which means that all you can know is that someone pressed a button. And therefore, again, it is only usable information is to know if you have an audience or not. And when it comes to low value you content, you want to hide from the user that they have an audience. Don't feed the trolls, as the saying goes.

Furthermore, I am not sure your logic holds. I have received a number of informative/downvote responses for my comment and it is currently found near the top of the page where most will see it and as a result has also garnered the most reply activity any of my comments have seen to date. If users are trying to make it less visible, they have failed miserably. The feedback that has been provided indicates that this is one of my most visible comments ever.

Again, the buttons have no real meaning. They are there simply to provide knowledge of someone having consumed your content. However, to try and find meaning, it seems most have settled on upvote = funny, downvote = informative. What is certain is that you do not want to feed the trolls. Providing analytics data to those creating garbage is how you end up with "post-facticism and ignorance on the internet" so the idea of using the downarrow to ward off negative content is completely nonsensical.
My puberty was chemically delayed. I was their guinea pig
Thanks for the interesting response. By trader I mean wall street style
trader, more the “big short” style in my mind, but algorithmic traders and the stay at home day trader too.
Show HN: Read summaries of articles posted on HN
Somewhere between "Let's ignore it for now" (i.e. zero which is a very exact number as a professor of mine used to say), a few days, and "I'm not even sure we can do what's being asked for here" are a whole lot of other numbers which may be useful even if they're off by a factor of two or more.

I've absolutely had management insist on putting overly optimistic stretch goals into schedules but, at the end of the day, they haven't been totally outside the envelope of reality.
Ask HN: Alternatives to Server-Side JavaScript/Node.js?
Preferably highly performant and well supported by a community or corporation.
CLOS implementation of multiple inheritance is less problematic, and usually you don't have overlapping methods involved - and if you really need to, you have interfaces to control inheritance process (including the ability to prevent multiple inheritance)
Seems very odd to be sending a contractor on training (or trying to).
All the arguments Ive seen against computational consciousness seem to me to reduce down to arguments against materialism. I expounded on this more in a root comment, and subsequent discussions so I won't repeat.

Right now in physics and the materials sciences materialism is thoroughly uncontroversial. There is no evidence for any kind of dualism, it only rears it's nebulous and poorly defined head when we talk about consciousness, and there is zero experimental evidence for it. Therefore no, I think the burden of proof is on the dualist / non-computational consciousness side.
Writing like this works really well for vim and git as well. It makes it easy to delete/move/edit lines (eg with: d2j), and then in git the diffs are by default formatted nicely and contain only sentences.

Though if you wanted to get fancy you could use other vim movement commands (yank the next 2 sentences), I still think it's easier using lines.
> While there is some uncertainty non of it really touches companies whose main business isn't collecting PII.

You are a real estate management company, and you have a form to collect names and phone numbers, just to call prospects back. Is your main business "collecting PII"? No. Were you affected by GDPR? Yes.

Same thing if you are a restaurant owner with a website that had an OpenTable integration to accept reservations.

> you are saying that big corps need to hire an army of lawyers, spend resources on catching their competitors

Now you are just playing dumb. I am not saying that they need to catch anyone. What I am saying is that they benefit from the uncertainty and complexity from a piece of legislation that could potentially affect smaller business who were not equipped to respond properly.

> are you just some libertarian/ancap who rages against regulation without actually knowing anything about it?

I spent the 6 months before GDPR dealing with the changes that had to be done in an e-commerce startup I was working at the time, and I saw all the questions from vendors and all the people being worried because they simply had no clue what needed to be done to be compliant. But feel free to keep thinking I am just "raging against regulation".

The hilarious thing about the "you don't know what you are talking about" accusation is that it usually comes from people who blindly bought into the idea that GDPR has any tooth into the fight against surveillance. If what I am saying is not enough to convince you of how backwards GDPR is, could I then ask you for any example where GDPR was effective in reducing the amount of unnecessary data collection?

Is Google/Facebook/Amazon/Twitter/Microsoft/Apple tracking you less after GDPR? No, they continue to do the same shit. They are still punching you in the face, the only difference is that now you are being "asked for consent".
A corporation's culture is what it allows to happen and doesn't fix.

My major takeaways from this:

* Spotify doesn't have good oversight of their managers

* Spotify doesn't value their individual contributors enough to provide them with a clear problem resolution path for this situation

* Spotify has an HR shadowban procedure

* The author doesn't have (or didn't have) great coping skills when presented with a corporate political problem outside of the usual context
Apple Style Guide - Writing inclusively