skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
We only ever have finite conversations in real life, and strictly speaking big-O notation requires arbitrary input sizes.

So any application of big-O notation to this would require some generalisation and abuse of notation. It's a bit hard to formally argue which abuse is The Right One.
It's absolutely mindboggling how Google had 2nd largest social network after Facebook for some years, and then just simply closed it because NIH.
Which is a message that unfortunely many WASM advocates leave out, asserting it is secure all over the board, hence why I tend to point out there are actually some footnotes related to it.
It depends a lot on what exactly you need or want to use. Sometimes you find something great, or nothing, or something in-between. One nice thing with Ada is how easily it binds to C, and that just got some improvements. Not as easy and nice as somebody else doing it for you, but still. It's something I actually consider, which is more than I can say for any other language.

FWIW, in my brief dalliance with Pascal, I got the impression it's a good bit more, uh, fossilized than Ada. I didn't try too hard to find a pulse there at the time, but I don't think I tried much harder with Ada. Yet here I am, shamelessly shilling.
I usually don't intentionally vote at all. And the few times I did, I actually regret upvoting. (Thankfully, votes are private)
>> from the look of the code Ada seems to me such a nice, chill language

Looks are deceiving. Ada's verbosity and bureaucracy are mind-numbing. I would still choose it over C and C++, though.
In software development, when you automate something, what you are really doing is constraining that thing with automation. And you can only constrain a problem that is well known with a high degree of certainty.

Automation in software engineering must be applied to the build and deploy phase (i.e., the construction phase or outer loop) and never to the coding phase (i.e., the design phase or inner loop). Let's think about this as if it was a physics problem: data has mass, computing consumes energy, and the network takes time.
Then, you want to minimize all those variables during your creative work so it runs smoothly while you don't mind to maximize them to make digital copies of that work.
I'll preface this by stating that this is probably not a popular opinion.

Notwithstanding the ideals behind the Stolpersteine, they are not exclusively a positive influence. The problem lies in one of the defining characteristics of this project: the stones are placed in front of the houses where the Jewish victims who got deported and executed lived.

This means that if you happen to live in a house tenanted by these unfortuna victims in the past (or even in a new house built where their house was), you can end up with a whole bunch of names permanently staring at you whenever you leave the house. Some, perhaps most, people can ignore that, but for some this constant reminder of pointless death and hardship is quite a burden and can significantly affect their quality of life — should they feel guilty for living? If you speak up about this, you are branded a clueless NIMBY resident or even an anti-Semite (there have been a few of such cases in the Netherlands).

Normally, memorials and remembrances are limited in their influence on people's daily life. Memorials are not just placed haphazardly, but with proper consideration of the needs and wants of those who life in the area, as well as the victims and their descendants. A respectful, serene corner of a public park for example. Events where the victims of past conflicts are remembered are limited in time: you can participate or ignore it, and then move on with your life. Stolpersteine however, just get put there in the pavement whether you like it or not.

Should people be confronted with the horrors of past conflicts? Absolutely — during education and in locations where this is to be expected and one can open up to consider the actions and consequences of the past — but not everywhere, not constantly, and not exclusively (there are, after all, quite a few horrific things in our recent past, certainly not limited to the fate of deported Jews in the Second World War). Unavoidable, the dead commemorated by Stolpersteine stake out quite a claim on the land of the living. I do find that Stolpersteine presume too much upon the public space to the point of becoming tasteless and an affront.
Could be rewritten as "I never downvote, to avoid the possibility of sometimes misinterpreting the tone of a non native speaker."
Google Says It’s Time for Longtime Small-Business Users to Pay Up
Our Digital Lives Rest on a Robust, Flexible, and Stable Fair Use Regime
I always thought that a firstperson shooter game where whenever you killed a mook you'd get a quick flashback of that person's life would have been a super interesting concept. Especially if it was a Call of Duty like game, rather than a game where you could choose to avoid killing.
What do you mean by "verified"?

We are discussing what is ultimately a matter of philosophy - "what is a useful definition of computation".

I am claiming that the model of the electron and other particles, and how they interact to form an electrical circuit with transistors, and how these electrical circuits react to current when in the pattern we call "logical gates" do not conform to what is normally understood by "computation".

I am also claiming that the ensemble formed from these logical gates does fit the concept of computation, that you couldn't derive its behavior directly from innate physical laws - the behavior is governed by the program it is manipulating, and can be changed.

Finally, I am claiming that the living cell is more similar to our CPU than to the electrical circuit or moving electrons in the way it processes DNA to produce various proteins.
You’re probably right. Cartoons are weird.. uncanny valley stuff feels even weirder to me, but maybe doesn’t really matter.
Yup. I mean, the only reason that video looked beautiful was that this CEO was the only hoverbike in that landscape. And even then they had to put on music to hide the noise.

I don't want to downplay the achievement. Building this thing was hard, and I'm sure that flying it must be super fun. Heck, I won't even rule out buying one myself. But when I look at this from the perspective of our ancestors who dreamed of flying, and of our future, I must say: This is not the answer. It's one very clumsy, inelegant iteration, like some 1950s mainframe computer. We should be happy that it exists. But it should exist only as an ancestor to something greater. In other words, we shouldn't celebrate and say we "cracked human flight", or "the flying car", or "democratization of flying". We should not be satisfied with this, at all. And we should remember that, if old Lilienthal saw this, he would be disappointed in us. He'd want us to try harder.

(He might even say that it's not "flying like a bird" anymore if it's so loud. That what we've done here is cheating. Like launching a man from a catapult and then claiming we've "solved flying". It just isn't the thing that people imagined when they longed to "fly like a bird".)
> Now that I’m making software I often work nights and weekends because I enjoy it so much.

I used to be like that in the beginning of my career. Before working, writing code was a major hobby since I was a kid.

Now, after 18 years of career, this is just a recipe for burnout. And if you work in a team, it's a recipe to dump unnecessary stress unto others, they see you working on weekends and nights, some of them will feel inadequate and try to compensate and mimic you. Most can't really push that in a sustainable and healthy way so they'll burnout.

I hope you are working like that in a very async manner, where you can work on flexible hours, etc. If you aren't and you are working on a team environment, you might just be causing issues without even realising it (or perhaps not, it all depends on the people you are working with). Generally, in my experience, this isn't sustainable for a team.

And yes, I guess you shouldn't move to Germany, even though they work longer hours than us here in Sweden manager still don't tolerate much of someone burning the midnight oil...
>People commonly complain how bad internet access is in the US

The US has the world's eighth-fastest median broadband speed (<https://www.speedtest.net/global-index#fixed>).
Today you don't even need to do any look-up table, most short GPT-3-generated dialogues seem perfectly fine from a Turing-test perspective. That form of the Turing test stopped being useful long ago..

Still, the Turing test was never meant as a measure of "consciousness", right?
Oof that is a terrible argument.

And sorry for the swearing (depending on what cypher book you used to read that last sentence).

And ooh I revealed my HN password there for Alice or maybe Bob.

Anyway it is a bad argument because what we are saying is a hot iron is conscious because of a theoretical XOR mapping. That XOR mapping would need to be huge. And maybe that mapping is conscious. How can we know it isn’t. Although it is a snapshot of time.

We rely on memory so we can’t even be sure there is a future or past. That we are not simulated etc. There is probably an integer that represents my state. A damn large one.

You can’t boil this problem down to a proof by contradiction.

To be convinced he has to show me why we are different from digital information.
Thank you for your mention of the Raku Programming Language.

If you want to force usage of floating point arithmetic, you will have to indicate that in literal values. E.g. `0.1` would be a [Rat](https://docs.raku.org/type/Rat) (Rational number), and `0.1e0` would be a [Num](https://docs.raku.org/type/Num) (aka a floating point".

In Raku, to get the nearest representation, use the [.narrow](https://docs.raku.org/routine/narrow) method. So `42e0.narrow`, `42.0.narrow` and `42+0i.narrow` would all be an `Int`. Yes, Raku has complex numbers built in as well :-)
Well. FYI, unitary transformation, creation and annihilation operator, etc.
This is incredibly condescending. It’s the equivalent of telling a friend: “no, your arm is still broken” when they get their cast off.

I’m genuinely wondering how you can be so confident. You’re telling someone to follow your universal prescription, and insulting their suggestion taken from person experience.

Let alone the fact that you’re arguing against “resiliency” being a positive trait to foster in any human being, regardless of past traumas.

Do you at least acknowledge your confidence? You’re telling somebody off for sharing a reasonable mental health approach.

And what if I said I completely agreed with GP, on account of my person experience and reconciliation? Not everybody breaks in the same way; why do you then think that putting a person back together must follow your prescription?
> There are recourses against state actions. At least in functional judicial states (which I guess is also a tautology xD)

Unless the police harass you on the street and ~~steal~~confiscate all cash you have on hand aka "civil forfeiture" [1]. There are entire small towns that have set themselves up as essentially legal highway robbers [2], and federal agencies also like to rob people [3].

There's also a Last Week Tonight episode around it [4], it's a bit dated but still relevant.

Here in Germany, we can at least contest seizure orders because we are named the owners of, say, a couple grands in cash... but in the US, the cash itself can be named defendant, which is ridiculous but entirely legal [5].

[1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/09/08/t...

[3] https://ij.org/press-release/highway-robbery-in-reno-nevada-...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-the-he...
What explanation are you referring to though? Just saying consciousness is an emergent property is not an explanation. Rather it is an assertion.
std::map (as opposed to std::unordered_map) uses a balanced binary search tree approach and thus guarantees O(log n) lookup for anything that has a well-defined total order (i.e. comparison function), without worrying about hash functions, etc.

So, yes you can ;)
Likewise. I get very frustrated by all the people who will refuse to acknowledge that our ancestors did some atrocious things to people. People will just through some extrodinary hoops to rationalise why it either wasn't so terrible, or it was somehow justified in a way that other people's atrocities were not.
Why are you not using mermaid-js?
> Pretty much no one does any sort of identity verification anyway on any E2EE messaging system.

Even my tech-illiterate mother asked if I was hacked or just got a new phone (I got a new phone). The study you link is from 2018, I think it's not a bad assumption to say that people have had some education since then. In 2018 I just started using Signal, nowadays everybody is on it, in my various circles.
What about the oil price and aviation fuel tax? These planes are less efficient than newer designs like 787 or A350.
Do you know about mermaid-js?
I think you overestimate the knowledge most people have of California. I've been to Cali a bunch of times and none of the names they picked mean anything to me except Big Sur, but that's pretty obscure. I wouldn't expect anyone around me to know what or where it is unless they happened to be really big into the tech scene.

US tech firms have a long history of using US place names as code names for operating system releases. Windows 95 was Chicago, if I recall correctly.
Well said. This is a very difficult point to make in the current zeitgeist, but I hope to see it return to a reasonable perspective that most people can understand.
Sure, just use a tree-based map such as `std::map`. (Which, as the name implies, was the OG associative container in C++.)
I have no idea, I’m just saying you can conceive of physical phenomena being the subjective experience of existing within a computed environment. If, on the other hand, the computation happens within the physical substrate of the thing it’s computing… that seems weird to me.
I don’t find this to be a satisfying way to think about it.

The problem is that it’s quite possible that the abstractions you’re talking about are all part of the genetic ROM that exists so we can boot up our clones more quickly. If this is true then there is no reason that these abstractions couldn’t be learned, in which case you could take away the language, and perhaps the machine would continue to have thoughts; it would just be unable to communicate them. Of course, in this case you would probably conclude that it’s not conscious because it can’t communicate.

The underlying problem here is that we don’t know how consciousness emerges. We can’t say that LaMDA is not conscious unless we’ve proven that LaMDA’s construction is incompatible with consciousness, and we have not done that.
When Orkut was operational as a google project, I kinda liked it but there were two things that were an annoyance.

1) The servers appeared to be overloaded and about 25% of page loads showed an error page where pressing F5 did not try to reload the page you wanted, it just refreshed the error page. If I used open-in-new-tab trying the link again meant going back to the page with the link.

2) People who tried Orkut in the early days got control of pages such as "electronics" or "growing tomatoes" then stopped using Orkut.

There was no mechanism to appoint a new moderator to popular topic pages where the moderator had not logged in for a couple of years so pages for popular topics were full of spam.

I was not bothered that half the discussion on pages for many popular topics was in Portuguese.
No, and generating green hydrogen would be far more useful, but the only thing I can contort out of the argument would be it would encourage capital investment in more renewable generation which would then mean the price per kWh would reduce once the cancer of Bitcoin mining ends.
> True but they might not know what it is.

With a half life of 87.7 years there won't be any left by the time it's found.

They'll have to know nuclear science to even propose a hypothesis about what was in that container.

If they don't then they'll scratch their heads about how this thing was even powered.

The nature of unstable (and therefore radioactive) elements is that they'll decay until they are stable elements.
Can you use whatsapp on a pinephone? I know there's web whatsapp but you need to sign into that with a native app.

Honestly the browser, google maps (which works in the browser), whatsapp, SMS, phone calls, alarm, stop watch, camera... that's really about all I use on a phone. If I can find a linux device to switch that does that, I'll switch in a heartbeat. Phones are the least pleasant part of my "digital life" because of their toy operating systems.
Ranges Improvements with C++23
I agree with the conclusion, but not the reasoning.

I agree that "consciousness is not computation", if we convert that to "qualia is not computation", as the author seems to do. I agree because I don't think qualia -- like what red looks like to me -- can be communicated, whereas all computation seems communicable by writing out the Turing Machine. Maybe someone will convince me otherwise by describing redness.

However, the "triviality argument" seems pretty poor to me:

> 1. To say that a physical system is a computer requires an external observer to map the physical states of that system onto the abstract states of a Turing machine.

Does it? If nobody maps the states of AlphaZero to abstract states, will it fail at chess?

> 2. Consciousness does not require an external observer to exist.

I agree that my consciousness is not dependent on other people's consciousness, but I have no reason to be sure my consciousness is not external to my brain. If we're in a simulation, then it seems like my consciousness is external to my brain.

> 3. Therefore, consciousness cannot be reduced to computation.

Again, I agree, but not because of 1. and 2.

To me, consciouness/qualia seems like a mysterious other-worldly phenomena that observes interesting computations, but doesn't affect them.. like God running a universe simulation, and then looking at one of the creatures in it, and basically making up "what it's like" to be that creature, by filling in some gaps which are not dictated by the simulation, like what redness is like.

In conclusion: I think computers can definitely be conscious, but at the same time, I think consciounsess/qualia is weird, and is not computation.
I could not disagree more that there’s singular universally effective psychological or psychiatric treatments. It’s overly reductionist and ignores some basic facts such as two people experiencing the same trauma can be impacted by it in wildly different ways. Some people are for all intents and purposes unaffected in the long term and some are profoundly disabled. If we don’t respond the same to the cause, why do you assume we all respond the same to a treatment? I’d also say that trauma manifests in many different psychological pathologies that aren’t universally experienced, that’s why classifications in psychology have inventories and criteria that aren’t measurable objectively but are assessed. I’m sure you’re a great programmer though.
Wow, you have no honesty, do you?

I didn't reply to this:

> Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).

With this:

> But malnutrition is scarier.

I replied to this:

> Plants are enough (again, don't forget your B12 vegan supplements).

With this:

> Plants are enough but you need B12 supplements? What for?

You have no interest in a curious and intelligent conversation. All you want is to propagandise your vegan ideology. You will lie, and lie, and ignore everything everyone says, unless they say something that suits you.

And even that, you will try to twist to your own purpose. Everything you quote from the American Dietetic Association and the NHS and so on, all that hinges on a vegan diet that is "well planned". Which is very hard to do and most vegans don't manage it. Here's the Vegan society again:

> Most vegans show adequate B12 levels to make clinical deficiency unlikely but nonetheless show restricted activity of B12 related enzymes, leading to elevated homocysteine levels. Strong evidence has been gathered over the past decade that even slightly elevated homocysteine levels increase risk of heart disease and stroke and pregnancy complications.

https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/...

"Most vegans" ... risk heart disease, stroke and pregnancy complications! "Most vegans". Most! Because they don't get enough B12!

But you insist that "plants are enough" and that everyone can get enough B12 from nori and seaweed, which is patently false. And when you're challenged about it, you pretend you've been saying that all along: don't forget your supplements folks! (in parentheses).

Well, why do you need supplements when your diet is healthy? Why do you need supplements if "plants are enough"? Why do you need supplements if you can get enough B12 fron nori and seaweed?

Because plants are not enough. You need a balanced diet to stay healthy and if you cut meat and animal products from your diet your are putting your health at risk.

But you and other vegans will never admit that because it just doesn't look good. You just want people to stop eating meat and if that means never telling them how dangerous that is to their health, well so be it.

Irresponsible, dishonest, fanatical liars.
An encoding which varies over time, dependent on previous states does not seem impossible. I don't think this is disqualifying to say that a sufficiently complex system cannot then simulate an abstract machine.

It does not make the article argument valid however, just that the iron bar argument is still worth thinking about.

The article says that consciousness cannot be computing because it requires an observer to derive meaning. Nothing precludes sufficiently complex encodings to themselves be accurate simulations of abstract machines. I think such class of simulations being able to support themselves might be the nature of consciousness. Some physical systems might be better suited to allow the emergence of such recursive simulations.
> It is interesting to contemplate a world where one social network like facebook didn't end up dominating the entire space, but instead we had a bunch of social networks each dominating their own geographical region. And each such social network had its own peculiar dynamics, features and product experience that reflected the culture of the region it dominated.

That's exactly what the world was like before Facebook. Different countries had their own social networks. I grew up during that time, and remember the variety from having friends in different countries. "And each such social network had its own peculiar dynamics, features and product experience that reflected the culture of the region it dominated."

> I think such a world would have lead to way more innovation in this space.

Such a world led to Facebook - a single, centralised, unified UX. Long forgotten are the custom themes and addons for people's social media profiles, and peculiarities and dynamics of all the different social networks.
> Solend had "governance", which has the explicit goal of allowing for decentralized decisions to upgrade the contract and change the rules of engagement.

I’m not sure if this was true before 24 hours ago? If you click back on the link of this post you get to the DAO page: https://realms.today/dao/SLND

It seems that the vote to take control of the whale account was the first ever vote of this DAO. The Solend twitter account also refers to it as the first governance vote: https://twitter.com/solendprotocol/status/153844135044142284...

I’m not sure exactly when the Solend DAO was formed, but it doesn’t seem true that past users were involving themselves with a Solend that had governance. That seems to be an innovation specifically to solve this problem.