skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Malcolm Gladwell is the quintessential professional sophist. I remember attempting to read 'Blink' after it was recommended, and I could not force myself to finish it. His (continued) popularity taught me a deep lesson regarding humanity at the time.
FYI the authors of Freakonomics are Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner, not Malcolm Gladwell.
Groupon cuts over 500 staff, plans to focus only on mission-critical activities
> any safety checks put into the competing language will have a runtime cost, which often is unacceptable.

And what is the runtime cost of all the mitigations put in place because we don't use a memory safe language? Stack canaries, safe stacks, ASLR, control flow integrity, code pointer integrity, runtime attestation, library re-linking and randomization. Not to mention sandboxing techniques and other system level mitigations.

I suppose I should thank the C language for job security as a security engineer.
Yeah, I'm also confused by this.

A platform will define an ABI which, as I understand it, explains how parameters are passed to and returned from a "function", what types are supported and how they're encoded, at the processor register and stack level.

C, being the "portable assembler" [1] that it is, maps its types and functions pretty easily to that platform ABI, but I've been seeing a fair amount of confusion about that ABI being about C rather than any language that can link through that platform ABI. Couldn't it just as easily be called, I dunno, the Ada ABI?

[1] not really, except for the sake of this argument
Also Apple, fwiw. I just left a job doing rust there a few months ago (for another job doing rust at another FAANG). But if you have an iphone and use icloud, rust code has probably been involved in some part of your daily life (just not on the phone itself) for the last couple of years.

Rust usage at these companies isn't yet 'large' in the sense of KLoC or anything, especially compared to existing legacy codebases, but it's getting put in at some really critical infrastructure levels that are unlikely to do anything but grow imo.

That's kind of the thing about rust though. That's where it's got the most power to improve things, so its introduction to a workspace is kind of subtle.
Transcription factors often are partially disordered, just to name one. A bunch of others here:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrm3920
As a game developer, going on over two decades now, I have _complicated_ feelings about copyright. ;)
Considering how DALL-E is fed with so many stock images that it sometimes spontaneously generates specific stock image websites' watermarks on output,[1] this is the stupidest, blandest possible ouroboros.

[1] https://twitter.com/kevin2kelly/status/1551964984325812224
Hmm. I want to work at work (I don't have an in-home office so I really appreciate the separation), but if Malcolm Gladwell wants me to go in... maybe I can partition the livingroom somehow...
We have some really cool templates here: https://vercel.com/templates/blog :)
>>I dunno. I don't think I particularly want to live in a world where it's essentially impossible to regulate money. But I don't really see how to avoid it anymore.

I've long said that cryptocurrency will force people to decide whether they want a world where we have internet freedoms like free speech and access to strong encryption, or we want to be able to tax income and regulate finance.

By turning finance into published information, cryptocurrency reveals the authoritarian core of modern left wing political ideology. The idea that those on the left are liberal will be exposed as hollow by cryptocurrency.
Wow, this blog entry's reasoning is a leaky ship.

1. C language toolchain -- No specifics (save static analyzers, ... because C needs static analyzers to catch C specific bugs...). What do you actually feel you're missing? Most of these "new C" languages use the same backend as a C compiler. What can't you use?

2., 3., and 4. -- Just chicken and egg FUD.

Not to mention it's "'Better X' doesn't matter" fundamentally doesn't understand the competition.

A sample quote: "That's not just one but eight(!) killer features (re: Java). How many of those unique selling points do the C alternatives have? Less than Java did at least!" WTF?! "But Java had 8!" is laughable.

Another: "[A]ny safety checks put into the competing language will have a runtime cost, which often is unacceptable". We can also produce a car without windows, doors or a chassis that will survive a crash, and it may be faster too. We may even get lucky and live to tell the tale.

Again: "Aside from Jai, is anyone C alternative really looking to pursue having killer features?" Aside from Jai?! Jai. Really? Oh, I remember you just discounted safety and correctness as killer features. ... But Jai. And nothing against Jai. But a language which hasn't been, which may never be, released to the general public. Just, eyes wide open, wow.

I hope this is the peak of anti-Rust/pro-C silliness, but I know it's not.
Well, I appreciate you playing, but 15 years is way too long of a time frame. A majority of the bets on longbets.org aren't even for 15 years.
Thank you, Random Internet Stranger, for teaching me such a valuable lesson. I now know never to use any language that is Turing complete.
Remote work isn't just about the company results though (their profits, their effectivity), the point they're making in the article, which I believe in, is the effect on the human wellbeing. On average a lot of people might benefit from a more intimate/collegial environment (which the article says), and depending on your personality and skills it may be harder for some young people to get ahead when not being in the office (they might not be noticed, they might not build the right networks or be part of serendipitous important conversations etc.). I think we're moving fast to a world where many knowledge workers are becoming zero-career fend-for-yourself, kpi-only, you-wont-have-an-office, we-dont-know-you, "widget cranking" gig workers, and trust me that only benefits the shareholders and "the company"..
but the opportunity cost is enormous....you forfeit the ability to ever play again. so if someone was not lucky enough to have the 2000+ hours for their $2000(which is now a sunk cost) they cannot invest the time in the future either....
FBI Searches Trump’s Home in Florida
Interesting anecdata! Do you think the photo is authenticated/validated automatically (by software), or by a human, or combination (assistance)?

And, if you are willing to share, what country/bank?
re: Hands on the wheel banking

I wish the blog author didn't force me to read a ten minute article as a context clue to a sentence 1/3 of the way through the article I'm reading.
Happy to help, albeit I do not see why that is a conclusion of my argument.
Sorry, the quote is what Gladwell said about Freakonomics, printed on the cover.
I love so much that Microsoft actually came out with an Xbox mini fridge in 2021.
Malcolm "I write from my couch" Gladwell said this? Go look at any article about this topic on LinkedIn, and you will find a bunch of wannabe influencer-managers crying about not being able to "shoot the shit over the water-cooler" anymore, and a ton of brave employees telling them that they never, ever want to go back.

Sorta interesting that the millionaire class is all about being back in the office, while the rank and file general salaried employee wants no part of it. Wonder why that is? My guesses are that (a) managers want to be seen managing in order to get promotions, and (b) they actually believe that the average employee buys into this "team" bullshit while barely being able to afford day-to-day life. That's dead. They killed it. It's not coming back. Shouldn't have pocketed millions in PPP loans while lobbying against people getting a stimulus check if you didn't want people to notice the star differences between the classes. Also shouldn't have bragged to us about how management, in many of companies that have lost money for years, set aside their quarterly bonuses while still making multiples of what the average employee makes.
Possibly disabling JS, which isn't uncommon for HN users
Buy the gift now and by the time December rolls around the targeted ads will have lost interest.
Axios had serious reporting in many areas, and managed to build a following without resorting to clickbait. They managed a great exit for a media company. They are the anti-buzzfeed. Hopefully this inspires more of the same.
Malcom Gladwell is a fraud amongst frauds. His credentials are espousing wise-sounding bullshit that appeals to a wide market audience in order to make them feel smarter. Like Jared Diamond, It's Joe Rogan / Jordan Peterson for a different audience.
MantaRay: Open-Source Ray Tracer
Northern Lights create Norfolk coast summer showcase
It's true that algorithms alone don't cross the threshold for copyrightability, but just decompiling copyright code and using that is extremely risky.

The carve-outs for interoperability might be useful here though.
If you have never tried using different hardness grades, just find an art supply shop with a display of drawing pencils and try a little scribble with each grade. Note that since every brand is a bit different, you can't use your experience with one to exactly predict the quality of another, even more so when comparing wood-cased with mechanical pencil leads.

As for MPs, if you really get into it, you could end up with many different ones for different situations, sort of like with paint brushes or golf clubs. Even cheap ones can be comfortable and durable. Some people like the Rotring because of the heft, but they are a bit sharp and the weight can get tiring, rather like with using metal polyhedral dice.
Based on my own experience, a caveat is that you need to be applying what you're learning outside of flashcards. Otherwise, it's like your brain has different memory banks for different contexts, and you'll remember everything when using your flashcards, but a real-world scenario will come up and you'll forget.

I went from zero Japanese to JLPT N2 in just a few years and I attribute a great deal of that to Anki. However, I was also frequently talking in Japanese, and reading/writing in Japanese. I was constantly using what I was learning.

Maybe an analogy is, Anki is like steroids, but you still need to go to the gym. :P

I don't study Japanese at all anymore and I have very little exposure to the language. But I still do my flashcards. I've noticed my recall is excellent when doing the flashcards, but if I see some Japanese written on a billboard, or think to myself "how do I say this again...", I struggle to recall even things that are in my flashcard packs.
I can wholly recommend Mochi: it’s great looking but also quickly becoming feature competitive with Anki. It’ll be a long time before anything hits the long tail of Anki features, but I find the trade offs to be more than worth it.
AI still can't translate lol
I mean for future products. I'm not sure they'd care enough to patch up previous hardware. Just my personal opinion based on hardware manufacturers in general though.
I did Anki religiously every day for 2 years, I managed to internalize a bunch of facts about Japanese and no skills. I knew tons of vocab words and grammar points but I couldn't make a sentence in the heat of the moment to save my life. I know memorization is a part of the game, but it's not the whole game. It's like learning a bunch of music theory without actually touching an instrument.

I am learning Mandarin now and my approach is completely different. Speaking and listening are the most important, I'm letting muscle memory of mouth (and sometimes gesturing tones with my hand) be my memorization technique. Six months-ish in and I can already express myself in rudimentary ways, it's way better than my Japanese was in that time frame. I have some Mandarin Anki decks that I do in the cracks of my day but I never finish my daily cards anymore and I don't spend a lot of time on it. I'll schedule an italki lesson or listen some speak-and-repeat courses instead.

Memorizing the notes in a song isn't learning to play music, memorizing a bunch of vocabulary isn't learning a foreign language.
Then I go after them for fraudulent reports to collections. This has worked.
If I stop paying for a service, and the service is no longer offered to me, but you keep billing me, that's fraud.
I think it’s important to remember that this cannot be true of all jobs and job roles.
Sun, Earth and Moon Position – 3D Simulator
Agreed on the last point. There seems to be a lot of weird advice out there regarding internal/, and many seem to be treating it as some secure hidden folder or something. There are a few good times to consider internal, but this isn't one of them.
Some humans are programmed to stop using printers after a certain amount of use
This idea sounds appealing, but wouldn't that also (generally) require standard power (115v/60hz stateside) to run the amps? Not having to worry about having an electrician run the appropriate 'high voltage' (in a residential wiring context) power to ceiling/wall speakers is appealing to me. I'd love any additional resources you have about this method though.
I think the next ag revolution will be robotics capable of harvesting and maintaining intercropping/multicropping based ecosystems instead of periodic-raze monocultures. The results are better in terms of output per unit of land, and the industrial inputs are reduced in terms of pest control and fertilizer. However, the machinery needs to be much more complicated and agricultural processes will not be as fast.
I almost always bail when I see animated gifs in a technical article. They are most often meant to add a touch of humour, so of questionable value to begin with, and I find them painfully distracting from the text I'm actually trying to read.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Gladwell’s stuff can make for entertaining reading but he’s fundamentally at some level a writer looking for views and not a scientist looking to drill down on the details to fully understand something. A lot of what he writes sounds great but doesn’t really survive a deeper dive into the subject where his core arguments start to unravel as inconvenient details he glossed over or didn’t mention at all come to light. Not saying I still don’t sometimes read his stuff, but I take a big grain of salt when doing so.

The sort of thing he’s getting flak for here is right up that alley… preaches about how working from home is terrible but forces his colleagues to adjust to his desire to not work from an office.
> any safety checks put into the competing language will have a runtime cost

How about all guarantees static analysis brings to data races, memory ownership, etc? No runtime cost. C tools do not bring this.
I think the main point is that a good alternative C doesn't compete directly with C's strongest points.

Here, you can of course make a more safe language without runtime penalty just by supporting richer build-time/static checks, but the modest and meaningful gains you make within that constraint will never be enough to displace C.

You need to be providing something meaningfully more in areas where C hasn't already squeezed out most gains. The OP tastefully avoided making this article directly about C3, but if you go and look at the summary of features, you can see how this philosophy connects with what they're working to build.
I think "discriminated union" is a useful bridge term here, even if it does confuse C programmers due to the conflated meanings of both enum and union in that language. It better represents the concept at an implementation level, and maps it to the C structure that enums more closely resemble in practice.
Yes it is actually. The fact that there is no evidence for this claim presented here or anywhere else is enough for me to rule it out.
Nobody thinks its okay for the pilot to take a nap on their flight despite the term autopilot originating from flight software. The reality is people just don’t fear or respect driving the way they should. But how many millions of people have died because they text and drive without autopilot? Or drive drunk without autopilot? Do alcohol companies have blood on their hands? Bars? Cellphone makers like Apple and Google? What about the people who let google maps instruct them to drive off cliffs or into rivers? Does google have blood on their hands?
Good luck America!
Already out
Lamp-post chargers are one possible solution in urban centers:

https://www.driving.co.uk/news/lamp-post-powered-electric-ca...

The advantage that electrons have over hydrocarbons is that the delivery network for end use is very highly decentralized. We have to stick hydrocarbons into a gas station with a big tank underground because we can't just have gasoline being piped into everyone's homes because that's just way too dangerous. With electrons you can stick charging stations all over the place.
I just finished Mark Twain’s “Roughing It”. If you want to learn what horrible, evil people the original Mormons were, it’s a good guide. Twain holds no punches. He describes the whole story in detail. They just straight up murdered a huge group of wagoners passing through to California because they wanted their cattle, etc. Almost every man woman and child killed except the youngest who wouldn’t be able to testify. That’s just the worst of a huge list of shitty things they did.
Thanks, we'll need it :(
Follow the money. He is clearly pandering to his audience. The influential business types, the CEOs, the executives. He is just giving them what they want, even though it makes him hypocritical. He is not really going to change the mind of the Elon Musks, the Tim Cooks, etc. they are already aligned. His first five books were hits, but it seems his later books were not as good, so he needs to emphasize the influencer angle. I think his primary gig is speaking arrangements now. Got to keep that gravy train flowing.
I think what he's saying for (1) is that the toolchain is good compared to other languages (lots of existing tools.)

I don't know why you say 2-4 is FUD.
Just because profits are higher after the occurrence of working from home, doesn’t mean it is because of it. This is a common logical and statistical fallacy to attribute causality from observation.
> What do you actually feel you're missing?

It explicitly says in the post... for example static analyzers. What is the "Frama-C" equivalent of any language that bills itself as a replacement / competitor of C?

> Most of these "new C" languages use the same backend as a C compiler.

Most of them use LLVM as far as I know, which does not target plenty of obscure platforms.
I agree. Most people fail to see it, because they see all the effort they need to put into producing good results (regardless of their actual job, BTW). Programmers keep thinking their job is secure, because, after wall, we are the ones, who write the software. Even if it's a ML system. (But ML systems don't necessarily need much coding.)

However, software development is probably the most thoroughly documented job, the job with the most information online how to do it right, the job with the best available training set. There is a lot of quality code (yes, bad code too), a lot of questions and answers with sample code (stackoverflow...) available. Maybe we've even already written most the software needed in the near future, it's just not available to everyone who needs it (because no one knows all the things out there and also these might be in several pieces in several repos).

Now the one critical thing I think is still needed, based on how actually we create software is an agent that has reasonable memory, that can handle back references (to what it has been told earlier), i.e. one that can handle an iterative conversation instead of a static, one time prompt.

This might be a big leap from where we are now or it may seem like one but AI/ML keeps surprising us for the past decade or so with these leaps. Another thing that may be needed is for it to be able to ask clarification questions (again, as a part of an iterative conversation). I'm not sure about this latter one, but this is definitely how we do the work.
'Alexa, please vacuum up this stain'

[Alexa-Roomba proceeds to clean the stain the carpet, while simultaneously analyzing the contents of the stain- 'blood, in large quantity']

[NOTIFYING RING HOME SECURITY]

'Homeowner, you're under arrest'
Any connection this? http://mantawiki.sci.utah.edu/manta/Main_Page
This was interesting, thanks for taking the time to post. Just to get a little pedantic, I believe it was the MP 36 that was machined and rather the MP 40 that was stamped, the former being more of a prototype for the latter.
> And worse, what if the language omits crucial features that are present in C? Features that C advanced programmers rely on?

Seems like this might be a good place to ask: which of the C replacement languages mentioned (or not mentioned) support inline assembly? Do any of them do it better than GCC/Clang? For me, I feel like the ability to drop to assembly in a pinch is a necessary feature. I'm sure I could technically get by linking an external file, but I'd be more interested in a language with inline ASM support than one that doesn't allow it. Thanks!
It’s basically the controller, service pattern without repository, isn’t it? What’s the difference beside the naming?
"The Millionaire Fastlane" changed how I view the world and pushed me to try and become an entrepreneur, terrible title but fantastic book.
FWIW, on the "non-creatively" angle, this is almost certainly some really simple algorithm that only looks really complicated as this is a direct translation of the obfuscated binary, and so I'm not sure you can analyze it using so simple a framework.

(Apple uses an obfuscation technique that converts functions into massive switch loops, threading a control variable through on which math is done to figure out the next block of code to switch-jump through; they then use a duality between the bitwise logic and algebraic rings to turn what might be one instruction into five instructions in a different order, and often broken up by the inverted looping. I believe--but am not sure, as most of my knowledge of this stuff is from trailblazing myself over the years... I wrote the first decompiler for .NET a couple decades ago and have done a lot of work in the iPhone jailbreaking ecosystem on static analysis and runtime modification--that the literature-searchable terms for these are "parameterized control flow flattening" and "mixed-boolean-arithmetic".)

So like, in some sense, this is not at all how someone else who understands how the algorithm works would implement it: it isn't like "oh yeah, there's one semi-obvious way to do it, and I did it that way", and one might definitely argue this is "creative".

(I've personally avoided ever just copying and redistributing--even in translated form--logic from Apple like this, and that's part of the reason. It might still be OK, due to some fair use -styled exemptions relating to software interoperability, but the only ones I explicitly know about are with relation to reverse engineering to obtain that interop, not the part where you directly copy the resulting logic instruction-by-instruction.)
Nature can still be important for even highly heritable traits. For example, the size of a person's vocabulary is highly heritable, but a feral human will have very limited vocabulary. Such traits still have a very strong biological basis.
Why non-FANG studies? Are FANG companies more effective at using people in office?
And who says that faster runtime trumps all other considerations? I would much rather have my computer run slower than have to continuously deal with security vulnerabilities. My time is much more valuable than CPU time.