skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"I have a library of Xbox and Xbox 360 discs I can just put in my Xbox Series X and still play, often with improvements."

Not to take away from Microsoft's achievement (and commitment) here, but of course much of that is dependent on remote servers to supply the necessary patches, or in some cases going so far as to just treat the original disc as a DRM dongle that enables an entirely image to be downloaded.

This is backcompat that allows you to play titles from the last twenty years right now, and that's still a huge improvement over anything Sony or Nintendo have done in the last generation or so [1], and reflects the degree to which Microsoft sees that as a killer feature of Steam. But it's not super likely that this will still work in another twenty years— the only archival-quality solution is keeping the old hardware working or hoping for the best with emulation.

[1]: But do note that a Wii U can natively play Wii games, and can be jailbroken to natively play Gamecube games, since all three systems are iterations of the same underlying platform. The launch versions of Nintendo's handhelds always supported at least one prior generation of game card/cartridge as well. And of course the initial "fat" SKUs of PS2 and PS3 could both play the generation of games immediately prior— and none of this required internet access.
I'm not sure why digital scarcity would be considered a good thing.

Mankind has spent its entire existence struggling with scarcity, hoping to one day find salvation and move past scarcity.

Now, thanks to all our technological advances, a post-scarcity world is finally within view, and people want to artificially reintroduce it?

Why would we want to regress?
Congrats! This is inspiring!
Yet the professor rejects out of hand that any changes need to happen with the course material, instead deciding the he needs to do a better job of "explaining how to succeed in the class" and "somehow making making office hours more welcoming.'

Very little to no time is spent looking at ways to do either of those. This the article really is just mostly the professor complaining about his students while doing no introspection on his own possible failures.
London being one of the most expensive cities in the world maybe has something to do with it…
That comment got flagged, probably because HN audience is mostly pro covid vaccine... "trust the science" or whatever.

Initially, the only thing stopping me from getting this vaccine was that people died of blood clots / heart attacks / strokes etc... and these vaccines are more like a Russian Roulette than some remedy. Especially Astrazeneca caused many problems.

And now after months seeing that these vaccines are not any effective and people are getting covid, especially after being vaccinated / boostered I ask myself, WHY should I get it? Why don't they can make a good and working vaccine - probably because they rushed it in few months. I am a developer and a good software needs time. You can still get the software few months earlier, but it will be full of bugs and could cause many problems. I don't want to have these problems in my body.
Am still salty that the Sly Cooper HD trilogy for PS3 never made it to PS4.
>> Digital goods aren’t naturally scarce. The marginal cost to replicate them is practically zero, as anyone who ever copy-and-pasted something can attest to. For this reason, digital scarcity used to be an oxymoron. If something is digital, it is just information, and information can be easily copied.

This is still true.

Artificial scarcity is artificial.

The only way to enforce artificial scarcity is through laws / legal systems and DRM.
This never fails to crack me up.

You should check out the comments on any New Yorker link posted on HN. “The author seemed to use a lot of words and took a long time to get to her point in a very roundabout way. This could’ve been 90% shorter.”

It’s the literary equivalent of Twitter-is-a-weekend-project.
Revenge porn and webcams: the firing of a TV weatherman
I get the feeling a lot of vi/vim users are folks who do sysadmin (whatever fun title that has this year) and vi/vim are installed on the box by default. You don't need a very deep knowledge of vi/vim to be productive. Its basically single page cheat-sheet to be productive enough for a lot of jobs, and it works ok over a low bandwidth connection.
Reference to the Edge thing called "Super Duper Secure Mode" https://microsoftedge.github.io/edgevr/posts/Super-Duper-Sec...
https://memegenerator.net/instance/64466228
When the mass vaccinations started alpha was already the dominant variant. When I was vaccinated it was clear that delta would matter most. So the vaccination for my age group was pretty pointless.

Also you didn’t cite a number of efficacy. Clicking through the many cases I come up with something less than 40% (protection against infection) within a year. If you compare that with the 97% for lifetime (measles) you can understand the disappointment of the people and why they don’t want to call it a vaccine.

The ancestral strain results were (naturally) also only of the kind: 95% protection for 3 months (or was the study period only 1 month?). Of course nobody could know for sure. But to many it was no surprise that the virus would escape any vaccine quickly just like the flu.

OTOH: From all data I saw, I agree that the vaccine improved the chances of survival of the elderly.
Bitcoin is not an 'industry' so it's not comparable on those terms, moreover, it provides nothing of value to anyone.
Flagrant dismissal of work is against HN's guidelines which you can review at the bottom of this page.
There's no need to convince them. Just install Firefox with uBlock Orign on their machine and set it as default. I guarantee they'll enjoy the new and improved web.
I miss when writers would simply write their thesis down. I looked (not exhaustively) but the thesis here seems only implicit. This seems essentially a love letter to bitcoin.
It has nothing to do with the conversation itself, it's a very common case of middle age crisis (You will note his parent are 65, he's certainly something around 40). All human arriving at this age experience the same. It's a very sane crisis, once you sink you have limited resource and limited time, you can really accomplish interesting projects.
I'm not trying to be cheeky here, but I've actually never heard of the flu shot being represented as a vaccine before. It's always called on signage and in the common vernacular "the flu shot", precisely because everybody knows it's a crapshoot and probably only worth getting if you're especially vulnerable.

From the US if it matters, but I don't think I've ever heard the term "flu vaccine" before. Just - Flu Shot.
Related explanation as to why gold was picked by many civilizations to represent money.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131430755/a-ch...
Those other industries do useful things. If the world stopped having aluminum or steel, the effects would be catastrophic.

If Bitcoin stopped tomorrow, nobody other than speculators would notice it except as a funny story in the news.
See I didn’t even need to describe goalposts moving.
And artificial scarcity only exists because the entirety of our system is based on making money off of scarcity
That's microecon (which I agree is meh). Macroecon is very useful. Anticipating how governments and central banks will react in the face of economic conditions can make you a better business operator and investor.
1. We have absolutely no certainty that no planet-killers are there. All we know is that none mapper are.

2. China has an Arecibo-class device. Actually bigger than Arecibo. Do we need two? Considering that the whole Free World could not scratch together enough money just to maintain Arecibo, building it again seems beyond possibility.
Or maybe the explanation can be found in the snippet you quoted.
I think this is plausible on the margins, although it could be true that Davidson relative to peers are lower but still overall take the same test they are higher compared to 20 years ago as well (is there some term for people somewhat smarter over time?). Or more specifically `Smart(Davidson Now) < Smart(Peers Now)` could be true, but this doesn't 100% imply `Smart(Davidson Now) < Smart(Davidson 20 years ago)`.

That said, as a professor you take kids as they are, not as you wish them to be. I have only taught at state schools, but if I had to teach the same course at a community college (or an advanced high school) I would likely alter my course/lectures at least some to accomodate the different pupils.

I remember Macro econ was a tough slog when I was an undergrad (it was at 8am). IMO they should do micro as the intro course and leave macro for the majors.
> First, attendance was sporadic with many of my students. They have been told not to attend class “if they are not feeling well,” and many take that warning quite literally.

Did the author forget about Covid. These students has their last two years of high school completely overturned by Covid and broad shutdowns. Of course, they are going to take the warning literally for school.

I think the Covid shutdowns really hurt young people’s education, and we are only just seeing the evidence for how much.
They should fix that by shipping Firefox with uBlock Origin included.
Oh bullshit.

The methane emission thing is still largely theoretical. In the real world, Bitcoin is mined using particularly filthy coal in Kazakhstan, as well as natural gas in the USA - https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/26/investing/bitcoin-mining-...

There's always an excuse or a "well just around the corner it'll be better", but the fact is it's actually terrible and this is pure distraction.

Yes, I know, if you can mine bitcoin and release CO2 instead of releasing methane directly, that's a small win in climate terms, roughly equivalent to just flaring the gas, but with a profit motive. Let me know when that accounts for even a handful of percentage points of the total hashrate, let alone the majority.
New micro:bit Python editor focused on supported text-based coding
The article points out there's just not enough raw lithium and nickel to go around to convert every gas car to an EV.

If everyone would suddenly want an EV, that would drive raw material prices even higher and would lead to a drastic expansion of lithium mining, without the necessary environmental precautions, which would counteract the environmental benefits of EV adoption.
Hacking Google to Defend Enterprises
This is a new version of the micro:bit Python Editor designed to engage students learning text-based coding.

The goal is not to hide all the complexities of syntax and structure, but to support students in learning about these things.

There's a simulator so you can try your code without the micro:bit.

Source code here: https://github.com/microbit-foundation/python-editor-v3
> Autistic children with imaginary friends have better social skills

I'll drop that line at the next party, the whole room will crack up.

(I'm the party host. All my imaginary friends will be there.)
Yes but what size is torus-sized? Is a torus bigger than a pyramid?
> We spend most of our lives playing a game:

> Everything we do is in anticipation of the future. When that future comes, we simply reset to the next one.

> “I can’t wait until I’m 18 so I can [X].”

> “I can’t wait until I’m 25 so I can [Y]."

> “I can’t wait until I’m 45 so I can [Z]."

Really? Do "we"? I don't. Maybe Sahil does, but he also realised his parents were mortal and our lives are finite in his 30s (?). I find this trend on social media and in blogs where people make a personal discovery and frame it as if it applies to everyone really condescending. I don't even mean to sound so cynical, but somehow it just rubs me the wrong way.

The same with how he just assumes everyone was lucky enough to have parents who love and care about them (and each other).
> or any other blockchain (which basically is just trying to copy Ethereum).

This is a gross mischaracterization of altcoins. Some try to provide the same functionality as Bitcoin but with greater simplicity, better scalability and privacy (Mimblewimble blockchains), and a fairer emission.
Scare news/disinformation:

A direct conflict between the us and putin's regime means complete nuclear anihilation of many cities of russia and us (and nato). We are talking tens if not hundreds of millions of deaths.

From a internal russia political standpoint, if russia is not able to hold with its convential army the "new" (ahem...) boundaries (or "enough" of them), it could "wipe clean", and that "legally", any "front line" with tactical nukes (5/10->? MTs).

putin's regime could not care less about economic sanctions, that's clear now, and on this matter china may be involved soon, since china (the factory of the world) will probably be caught providing some goods to russia. In one of the main contexts of "hacker news", for instance, their new 7nm electronics.

This conflict is now at a pivotal point, it all depends on what the ukrainian army and pro-ukrainian ppl of the "new" russian regions will do in the next weeks/months (this may be the beginning of a "pause" in the conflict, who knows).
Oh, yes, but emulation is not piracy (at least in my view :-)
Many years ago I did IT work for a company who got the patent. They figured out you can biopsy cancer cells. Implant them in generic fish and then monitor what happens in the fish. If the cancer spreads you know it will spread in the human. If it doesn't spread in the fish it doesn't spread in the human.

The big deal, if you know this answer, you can go chemo if it does spread or surgery if it doesn't. Being able to make this informed decision basically lets you treat cancer at extremely high success rates.

They sold the rights to a big insurance company.
> According to Chainalysis, Paxful, a popular peer-to-peer exchange, is experiencing remittance user growth rates as high as 55% in Nigeria (Paxful’s biggest market) and 140% in Kenya.

It probably shouldn't be shocking that the country that gave us the name for advance-fee scams (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_scam) is seeing a lot of Paxful usage.

https://www.agari.com/blog/scarlet-widow-bombs-nonprofit-dir...

> By requesting Apple iTunes or Google Play gift cards rather than wire transfers, the group is able to eliminate associated money mules and safeguard their earnings, far away from bank accounts that could easily get shut down. Of course, their main objective is not to stockpile gift cards but rather to easily and quickly turn them into cash. Scarlet Widow does this by using two online services: Paxful and Remitano. By first advertising the stolen cards on Paxful, the group can successfully turn them into bitcoin, which they can then trade on Remitano for a specified price. Once the Scarlet Widow actors have exchanged their bitcoin and the buyer’s funds are in their bank account, the process of converting illicit gift cards into cash is complete.
Yes, we know the vaccine wasn't perfect. The question isn't if it's perfect or not, though. It's if taking it has a better outcome than not taking it. This goes for all vaccines. They have side effects. But for those in common use, it's been determined the side effects (although sad for those affected) are better on average than people not taking the vaccine.
Yup. It's another piece of software that hates its users. Another company where people are having meetings discussing the best methods to prevent their software's users from doing something with their own computers. Protecting users from their own preferences. Antiuser interfaces.
The Steam Deck is a PC, not a console.
As much as I agree with you, I also don't think it really behooves any of us who possess or transact in these to go singing their praises without thought given to the audience. The speculators are a net negative to the utility of these assets, and the more time living in markets without the attention of centralized financial authorities, the better.
I see this quote or mentions along this line popping up every single time someone says there is a regression in a newer generation.

But some generations actually are worse than their predecessors (at least in certain aspects). There are universal complaints about teenagers: loud, rude, etc, and there are specifics I see for youth today: they are emotionally more fragile and underdeveloped, are more passive in general, understand complex situations less, and have a harder time in accepting reality.

I'm not blaming anyone (if I were it would be the boomers that ruined the youth today), but blanked dismissal of issues because "this is how things have always been" doesn't help. For most of human history we've been at war and at the brink of starvation, and all the while there was a concentrated effort to handle those issues.
Maybe no shockingly obvious “improvements” but I’ve noticed friends and family who don’t game have a much harder time following the gps while the gamers usually have it on silent and glance every now and then with no issue. I bet there are a lot of mini things like that gaming improves.
With this app you can translate Twilio Studio IVR in Crowdin and keep the app multilingual.
> rapidly becoming a net carbon negative industry

In spite of the mining industry’s half-hearted attempts at greenwashing what they do, the largest mining operations are coal and natural gas.
BuildZoom (YC W13) Is hiring a Principal Engineer
nah, FF is reselling mulvad vpn if i am not wrong, plus that is a paid offering so its not like the masses will join it in droves.
Compared with the alternatives which don't support extensions at all? What is your point?

They did it for technical reasons, and one of the first extensions to be supported was ublock origin.
And nothing really stops exchanges grouping together and starting to do things with fractional reserves. It is all digital anyway, so blocking the few big askers from taking their coins out with various reasons wouldn't be big thing. And average user wouldn't really care how their money works...
That's the idea behind "The tail end" https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
> most people in Finland and Austria have more cultural similarity to their neighbors than I do with the 2nd generation Chinese immigrants that live on one side of me and the French-Creole couple on the other side.

Do you think there are no Chinese immigrants in European countries?

My examples were about people who have been living natively in certain areas for centuries. Of course, on top of that, we have had immigrants from all over the world in recent decades: Turkish people came to Germany in large numbers in the 50s, Tamil people fleed Sri Lanka in the 90s and came also to Europe, then all the refugees from the Balkan Wars and more recently from Syria and Ukraine, ...

Is NYC more ethnically and culturally diverse than a random mountain village in Austria? Yes, for sure. But Berlin is also more diverse than some random town in Montana. That's just a feature of big cities.

As a whole, though, I feel you're severely underestimating the cultural diversity in Europe.

We have the exact same problems with different cultural segments of the population having distinct discourses about important issues such as gender roles, LGBTQ, COVID, the war in Ukraine, etc.
Is this comment about copyright? Obviously, excessively long copyright terms are a problem, but what is the alternative to a short copyright term to motivate a non taxpayer funded entity to engage in a venture with very high initial costs and very low marginal costs to copy?
A chest X ray doesn't get inhaled, to provide a constant 0.1 mSv internally for the next 15 years or up to 24,000 years.
> And now after months seeing that these vaccines are not any effective and people are getting covid, especially after being vaccinated / boostered I ask myself, WHY should I get it?

You’re misunderstanding. The vaccines are effective, just not as effective against the current variant compared to some other variants. You’ll still get protection in general and your symptoms will be reduced if you do get infected with omicron. Vaccines are not a zero-sum game kind of choice, it’s about probability and risk reduction.
No it isn't. It's using hard coal in Kazakhstan, amongst other power sources. This is wishful thinking.
> I'm not sure if Ethereum will be around 100 years from now, but I'm pretty sure Bitcoin will.

Bitcoin is fascinating. A kind of memetic virus feeding on vast amounts of energy via human mindshare. The thought of 100 years of proof of work is pretty scary though. I think eventually PoW may have to be regulated out of existence. It's not ideal, but with Bitcoin lacking any real governance or organisation, I don't see any other way of fixing it.
> the only area where Firefox previously had a massive advantage over Chrome.

It didn't though, because the API was different a lot of extensions that appeal to a broader user base were not made available on firefox (anymore). Yes, the previous framework did allow other use cases more suitable for power users but those are a fraction of the total user base.

And in general it hugely simplified extension development. Instead of having to maintain various code paths for different browsers and accounting for slightly incompatible APIs this was no longer needed.
Vaccines have always provided immunity from infection. I can't believe am even providing a source for this but in case you've been living in a bubble. The CDC did change the definition of the term vaccination to remove immunization on their website. [0] Compared to what they have up today. [1]

Efficacy figures for covid vaccines were nothing but cooked-up gobbledygook. [2]

[0]http://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.go...

[1]https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm

[2]https://www.science.org/content/article/astrazeneca-lowers-e...
I wouldn't have made this comment if I knew that. Though I suppose this is still an annoyance for git web interfaces. Thanks for the info!
They all deserve some scrutiny to determine their legality, yes.
I thought he was Finnish, judging by the last name, but according to Wikipedia, "Pääbo was born in Stockholm and grew up with his mother, Estonian chemist Karin Pääbo."

Also interesting, "His father was biochemist Sune Bergström, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane in 1982"
Why does this have to be ASCII art? Is there a technical limitation to terminals that prevents the full color space of the video sensor from being rendered?
> post-scarcity world is finally within view

Not against the entirely of your comment, but in what sense are we moving toward a post-scarcity world? There is a number of humans on the planet, with a limited number of resources, a limit which will be/has been reached at one point or another, as we cannot create new things from nothing.

Scarcity is built-in in the fabrics of the universe, and I don't see how we could be moving towards something that doesn't have scarcity.
Sex- and age-dependent genetics of longevity in a heterogeneous mouse population
> There seems - subjectively - to be a recent (years) uptick in the use of "codes" referring to source code.

I agree that there is an uptick in the last few years, but I've never encountered "codes" used by a native English speaker with an understanding of software (occasionally, even 10+ years ago, I've heard it used by non-technical people).

> And, perhaps controversially, does "codes" still sound wrong?

To my (native English speaker) ears, yes, very wrong, and all of the people I've encountered who use "codes" when referring to source code make numerous other common mistakes which I consider "codes" to be one of.
A lot of smallish bolides could be much worse than one big one.

Particularly if the big one would miss, but many of the saller ones don't.
What is this objective reality people struggle to accept?