skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Maybe they could turn their attention to the US? There are some CIA people in serious need of indictment. Fortunately there is no statute of limitations on torture. We know who they are. It would be a shame to wait until after they are dead.
Industrial revolution aside, I think it's agreed on that the movies didn't get economics right: that we would absolutely see far more agriculture in Rohan and Gondor. Also, that the Hobbits had far too much food and quality goods relative to what you would expect their labor to be. While we definitely see a lot of consumption, we see relatively little production.
Hah! A whole lot of Norwegian folklore involves stories about how a lot of our mountains are trolls who didn't get back in hiding before the sun came out... None of them explain where there'd be enough space for mountain sized trolls to hide during the days, though.
why did you bring your home computer into the mix to begin with? future advice, never do that. For a lot of different reasons.

Why do you think it would look bad on you if a slow computer does computer things slowly? This is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your knowledge of exactly why a slow computer is a bottleneck.

I would say be specific. Do not say "I am slow because my computer is slow".
Have a coworker send you benchmarks from their machine for some processes you use often. Run the same benchmarks on your machine. Talk about it with your manager. Ask him what you need to do to get a better machine.

Managers need details.
These are great questions to ask any early-stage startup you're considering working for. The reason they're great is that they're almost exactly what an investor would ask. And that makes sense: a startup's earliest employees are also its most committed investors.
Modern Fortran is easy to learn if you have Matlab muscles; there's a few additional concepts to learn because it's a "static" language, but much much easier than, say, Rust.
Try filing a support ticket with them with this information. I had something vaguely similar happen on GCP and they refunded the full amount
I don't think there is any implication of wrongdoing on the part of the Netherlands, looking at their news feed they seem to visit all European countries on a periodic basis.
> It is also clear that the author hasn't actually read the lord of the rings.

He even says so in one of the early paragraphs. Also this substank "Launched 15 days ago". Feels like clickbait self-promotion.

I'm not sure why anyone's wasting time with this nonsense question while not-high.
(Author here) Never expected something I wrote to be on the first page of HN begins sweating. I’ll be checkin this post throughout the day, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
Right. Concatenating in insufficiently constrained user inputs are dangerous (and trying to constrain a general string enough is usually too risky).

If you can prove that a user input is a harmless value (a valid column name for the table for an order by, an integer, etc) then concatenation is safe. On the other hand, it is still not ideal have a bunch of code where you are directly concatenating strings to generate SQL, since people making later changes are likely to end up modifying code to concatenate unsafe input.

Hence why having a good query builder api can be valuable. It can hide away the string concatenation, and if well designed, can force that a value but in the order by position is a column name, etc, ideally while making it hard or impossible to have insufficiently constrained user input thrown in.

For example, if a language supports distinguishing string literals (or compile time constant strings), and variable string values, it is possible to create a query builder api where arbitrary user provided strings simply cannot become part of the query. (e.g. The only paths that let non-constant strings into the query are those that highly constrain the strings to provably safe values).
You need to know the "speeds and feeds" of any given airplane. What is the stall speed? What is the landing speed? On a small single engine you can cut the throttle when you cross the fence but you'll hammer the landing gear on a commercial jet if you do that. How much flaps do you need? How do you enable thrust reversal? Does your plane have carb heat? Can you center the needles on the glide slope? Can you crab into a crosswind?

Commercial pilots are required to be trained for each type of jet they fly, even if they have years of experience.

After 2000 hours in the flight simulator I'm certain I could get a commercial jet on the ground but even the coroner wouldn't consider it a "landing".
There appears to be correlation to me. Not perfect. But far from random
If you are starting from zero COBOL experience, a mainframe environment may be too big of a learning curve.

Maybe start small. There were COBOL implementations for pretty much every 8-bit computer in the 80's. Think Commodore 64, Apple ][, or whatever emulated environment works for you.

Because they were designed for complete beginners, they often came with very detailed, very easy to comprehend manuals. Many of which are available as PDFs online today. And there was no end of third-party books to help you along, which may be available from Biblio, or whatever your favorite used book source is.

Getting a feel for COBOL from these baby steps can help you decide if you want to advance into full big iron COBOL development.

This also applies to FORTRAN, APL, and other older languages.
What's your understanding as to the source of inflation in an economy?

An increase of nominal money in an economy creates competition over the same limited quantity of goods which causes a rise in prices. AKA when money is cheap (low interest), people borrow more, which becomes spending, which leads to increased demand (and usually inflexible supply), etc.
This is the craziest thing I’ve read this week. Yes, we have too much violent crime, but it’s not worse than it was in the 90s. That’s a lot of regression in a short period of time, and we don’t want to continue on this trajectory, but it’s not nearly as extreme as you suggest.

I suspect you’re making a couple of errant assumptions:

1. Looking at the sheer number of homicides in the US without accounting for the US’s very large population (our rates are still high for a 1st world country, but not as much as they seem without the population adjustment)

2. Assuming that crime is evenly distributed across our country. Most of the violent crime in the US happens in so-called “inner cities”. Most of the country is very safe, but a few places are very unsafe.

Basically the US is a biiiigggg and diverse country by 1st world standards.
Why do you think Roe v Wade was over turned. This is my favorite theory yet and just might be true. Will never know of course, but does make sense
A trip down Market Street before the fire (1906)
If you don't block ads, I highly recommend clicking on the weird ones everyone once in awhile.

For about six months 80% of my ads were weird crystal figurines and other art pieces being sold for five figures. I kept clicking, and the advertisers fell over themselves to show me more of them. It delighted me every time I saw an abstract sculpture selling for more than my car, or a three story nativity carousel, both because it was fun to click through and look at them, and it was amusing to imagine how hard the ad engine wanted to sell me a 5-figure tchotchke for probably a 10% CPA commission.

I also had a fun period where I indicated I was interested in buying -- functional! -- windmills.

Be careful about clicking on anything you'd actually like to buy, though, like woodworking tools -- eventually you'll see something too good to pass up.
AWS support has historically been pretty good about removing these charges. Just be careful next time.

I racked up a $8k AWS bill for my university when I was leading a club. A few emails to AWS support and it was all resolved. Although there might've been more leniency since I was a student.
> you need to programmatically construct queries based on user input

You still need to build the queries and have control of what parametres are in use. Why not build the parameters list dynamically as well?. There are some databases or drivers that have limitations where you need to sanitize data yourself, but I'm not sure if that applies to the majority of the scenarios.

This is a simple example of code for constructing dynamic queries:

query = "... WHERE country = :country";
params.set("country", country);

if (userId != null) {
query += " AND user_id = :userId";
params.set("userId", userId);
}

It may become more complex as you add sub queries or if the database does not support adding a list as a parameter, but the principle is the same. You can always just build the list programatically using parameters instead of concatenating the values given by the user directly.

If there are drivers or databases that does not support this, you will need to sanitize the data yourself of course. But I don't think that is the case for most users.

(btw, database drivers that support named parameters are much more convenient than using "?")
100% look for a new job if the current employer is not willing to enable your success. It's completely reasonable as a developer to expect a work computer that allows you to do your job effectively. If they gave you an older model that doesn't perform well, make sure you document on the performance and detail how its limitations are holding up your work. You don't need to request some supercomputer but a reasonable alternative to what you have now. If they refuse without giving any reasonable explanation, then move on.
Missed one question:

"How much time are we going to spend dealing with unprofessional antics?"

I'll give you a hint, the question was rhetorical... and the answer should be 0 minutes regardless of the applicant. ;-)
Occupancy taxes and codified reasonable increases can’t create a dynamic rent market. Even if an entire city were to be put under a construction freeze, which would be incredibly unhealthy, problems would spill into suburbs. The rest is just re-assertions and a wish for perfect city planning.
Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg argued roe v wade was a mistake because it placed abortion rights into constitutional law rather than letting democratic institutions decide an issue like this.

The reason it’s not an issue in Europe is because opposing sides all get a say in this and arrive at a compromise, namely abortion allowed up to 12 weeks which is fairly standard in most European countries.

But because row v wade basically said abortion has to be allowed in the US, the issue has had no real democratic debate just massively polarized arguing.

I’d argue the current situation will be better for almost everyone a few years down the line. Democracy works in resolving these issues. And why not have stricter laws in more Christian states? And free for all in California, if that’s what democracy decides?
By-and-large, no group of people in America treat women worse than anti-abortion crowd.
Is it unbelievable that pressing a bar will bring you long term happiness? Surely it is, but primates will press the heroin bar. This has happened before with humans as well. You cannot simply dismiss the effectiveness of well - targeted propaganda.
Right, but that’s a great indicator of a company that is going to have plenty of other bullshit, and can lead to follow up questions to see how they disguise it?
For context [0], this is a regular visit, done 18 times a year across the COE's member countries, so for each country roughly every 4 years. (For extra extra context, the COE is a superset of the EU, which while not particularly binding serves more of a United Nations-like purpose, with a focus on human rights, democracy and rule-of-law.)

Intriguingly:

> The CPT [Committee for the Prevention of Torture] does not publish its visit report until the Government of the country concerned requests publication.

The committee encourages states to sign up for an automatic publication procedure for reports, but the Netherlands has not. I suppose this is still news, just more in the general announcement sense to the sort of people who'd regularly keep tabs on the CPT blog.

[0] https://www.coe.int/en/web/cpt/faqs
I absolutely love this. It would be fascinating for a CDN to figure out the exact battery-size/latency-hit arbitrage points so that you could have a "follow the sun edge computing" model. People using your internet service mid-day get the full local low-latency performance as usual. Late-day/early-evening business similarly get full local performance from the battery for a few hours. Then evening hours the latency hit grows as the sun and therefore the pop you're hitting tracks further west. If you're the kind of person who goes to bed early, or maybe just watches streaming video when its late anyway, you'll never even notice the latency hit (I figure 50-100ms most of the time). The ability to geographically route/control your traffic and shift which pops are active is already an innate capability of a CDN. The vertical integration from solar panels to high-margin-saas would be economically fascinating. And the "green tax" would be negligible.
While it isn't helpful that you're focusing on definitional terms rather than the point, the dictionary doesn't really back you up here anyhow.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism
> I can’t imagine anything LESS scummy than helping save the lives of those babies who are now likely very glad they were born

By the same token, wouldn't it be unethical to not have as many kids as possible all the time? After all, those kids will be glad that they were born.
I once committed my private AWS keys to a public github repo. A bot scooped it up nearly instantly and spun up many, many ec2 instances that were (probably) mining bitcoins.

I received an automated email from Github telling me that I had committed a private key, but it came in the middle of the night.

In the morning, when I learned what had happened, my bill was over $3k.

I fixed the issue and emailed AWS asking for some relief, and they called me and let me know they were waving all the charges.

So, perhaps you too can beg for mercy?
Alternatively, you could say we are progressing to understand that outdated concepts like viability have no scientific basis and human rights should be extended to all humans, even those in early developmental phases. The idea that some humans can be killed because they are “less” is a very primitive and prejudicial idea.
Not sure which FAANG does 10 interviews but anecdotally I've seen people get hired with 2 out of the 5 ratings being negative (i.e. no-hire).

Depending on where you live you likely have a legal right to the interviewer's written feedback. I've never tried it (US) but I've heard of many other people (US) that were successful but you probably need to know w/e relevant law it is as I assume by default you won't get it.
Same here.

T-minus 5 seconds until someone writes a Blender backend for Matplotlib or a Blender plotting library...
I replied elsewhere but by criminally liable I meant "can be charged".

It may not be how it is supposed to work but how does one defend a drug possession charge when they are in possession of drugs? Just say that the drugs in their backpack aren't theirs?
The comment you’re replying to describes a bait and switch “counseling clinic”. Cf. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/pregnancy-clinics-...

The moderate pro-life crowd should see this behavior as scummy and denounce it, as it taints their cause. IE take the high road to attaining their goals. Those in support of this behavior, have more deep ethical challenges, and I sincerely hope and believe are not the majority of pro-life voters..

(Using “pro-life” reluctantly here, to avoid distractions)

Edit to add: my intent by this comment is to depolarize. It’s frustrating to see child comments from the pro-choice side that don’t take my hint :/ Let’s not engage with the extreme on either side folks, if we want to better understand the opposing points of view. Yes, the loudest voices are often the most extreme, and no the moderates don’t denounce (on both sides!), but we can try to do better on our beloved HN.
Working with Git Submodules. A Walkthrough
Open a support ticket with them and they will likely forgive this charge as a one-time gratuity
> Before leetcode, we had people asking puzzles which had nothing to do with your coding abilities

This is also the problem with Leetcode: it often doesn't test 'can you code' but 'have you learnt this trick'.
>Using a language you can hire for,

A language like Haskell is much easier to hire for because you can get higher quality employees at a lower price, due to the high demand for Haskell programming jobs and low supply of such jobs. If you got for a language like Java, a double digit percentage of the candidates are the kind that can't even solve fizzbuzz without help, so you have to waste much more time weeding out mediocre candidates.
That looks really interesting. Unfortunately I don’t have an Xbox.
That assumes all interviewers are a) good members and b) good interviewers.

I have encountered my fair share of bad interviewers. You don't even need to take my word, go on Blind and read all the horror stories from both the interviewer and interviewee.

I think the statement to be too generalized and doesn't address the power dynamics of the interview process. You assume they are good judges of character from a 60 minute interview.
Technician Lost USB Stick With Data on 460,000 People
I wouldn't even show up in the kind of data they used:

"We, therefore, investigated data from nearly 500,000 people from the UK Biobank, with a mean age of 57. People were classified as socially isolated if they were living alone, had social contact less than monthly and participated in social activities less than weekly."

"Our study also included neuroimaging (MRI) data from approximately 32,000 people. This showed that socially isolated people had poorer cognition."

They focused on older people, severely isolated, for whom brain MRI data was available.

If you're not already having some sort of brain problem, you won't be listed in a database where your brain MRI data is available. "People with brain MRI data" is biased toward cognitive problems.
> Noticing how people get stuck is a super power, and one that many great tech leads (and yes, managers) rely on to get big things done

Taking it one step further. Noticing how you — yourself — get stuck is a superpower. But it's hard...really hard.

When I get stuck on troubleshooting an issue, I can sometimes fall in this trap that my wife calls the "blackhole." I obsess over it. I cannot rid the problem from my mind. My 2.5 year old even sees it in my eyes ; she'll glance up at me, wondering where I am.

Before reaching this "blackhole" state, I can start to feel when I get tunnel vision.... at which point, I distance myself from the problem.

Hands off the keyboard.

Go for a walk.

And almost EVERY damn time, I'm able to solve the problem easily. Just needed a fresh pair of (my own) eyes, a moment to get "unstuck".
Having lived in Europe all my life, I don't recognize that qualification at all. Yes, medical professionals are people too, so they can be overworked (especially since Covid), rude or absent. But on the whole, they come across to me as friendly, caring and professional.

Do doctors sometimes not give patients what they demand? Absolutely. But that's the way it's supposed to be - it's hard to make rational decisions when your own health, or that of a loved one, is on the line. That's why doctors consult doctors too.
San Francisco Earthquake 1906 - Before and After Journey Down Market Street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TaxcXfSwdE
tax rebates from a budget surplus
I never want to go to the office again (especially open floor plans), but I think you are being unfair to folks who like the office. Human interaction and energy are 100% a thing. I used to think sports were the most boring thing to watch, but then I went to an American football game where people cared. The energy was electric.

There are people that need people around to work. Perhaps it can be once a week, once a month, etc., but some workers actually need people. It's inhumane for some people. Stigmatizing them as unproductive without any other facts is just black and white thinking that does not advance the conversation.
It’s a divisive issue because it represents fundamentally different world views. As an asian, the idea that the government can’t regulate abortion, which is prevalent among a large minority of Democrats these days, is remarkable. Even if abortion was a moral issue, and not about preserving human life, nothing precludes states from legislating morality. It’s illustrative to compare to Japan or Germany, which have “liberal” abortion regimes insofar as it’s widely available. But in both countries it’s still technically illegal. The state has the power to regulate, but simply tolerates abortion under certain conditions.

When people deny that power altogether, you’re dealing with fundamentally different notions of how society works, and that predictably produces conflict. And people perceive that conflict as involving more fundamental issues than what the marginal income tax rate should be.

And which side “represents less than a plurality of voters?” Republicans won a majority of the Congressional popular vote in 2016. They got a million and a half more votes than Democrats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_House_of_Re.... They’re on pace to do it again this year. They’re also a couple of points ahead in the generic Congressional ballot.

It’s an error to rely on the Presidential popular vote. Because it doesn’t count nobody is trying to win it. It’s easy for Democrats to campaign in big cities in red states, but the GOP has no incentive to spend resources in rural areas of blue states. But they can and do field Congressional candidates in those areas, which is reflected in the Congressional popular vote.
And when someone drops a brick, and it falls to the floor, unless you're a physicist, you shouldn't infer it fell because of gravity. It could be that the video was taken in a room in space, and it feel because the space-ship is accelerating, or due to centrifugal forces from artificial gravity, or the brick has metal components, and there's a magnet under it.
I got some ideas:

Could just put a ballot at the end of tax forms. Just piggy back the ID confirm the IRS does. Doesn't have to be mandatory. Give a $5 tax credit for filling it out. People who don't pay taxes can vote normally or by mail.

Universal mail in voting. I'd go as far as to make mail in voting the only way to vote.

Make every state have the same voting day (primaries/general). This helps reduce media influence on the elections.

Get rid of first past the post voting. Allows for more political parties, increasing the odds people are engaged with one of the parties. Something like ranked choice would keep their vote relevant even if their preference didn't make the cut.

It's infuriating to me when people recognize there is a problem, yet toss up their hands and not try new things. How is repeating the same thing going to get different results?
He does but you're still clicking through rather than casually glancing at the bottom of a page as you would be a book or paper. Footnotes (or endnotes) are fine on the web (or Kindle, etc.) for reference that most people won't read. They're less good for parenthetical text.
Yes, they've taken the extreme view of "aborting a baby right before it's born" which doesn't fit the majority of cases and used it to argue against the norm, but if that were actually the case they would be limiting abortion to "reasonable" limits, not straight up "snitch on your neighbours if you think they've had an abortion" laws.
The debt is denominated in USD not Rubles, if it doesn't get paid in USD then it is not paid at all, people don't want Russias manipulated Rubles.