skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
One problem with this argument (and there are many) is that we assume that this _global_ public square should be controlled by the US government. That doesn’t make it much more fair or impartial than the current ownership. If being gay is illegal in many parts of the world, should people from those countries be able to call for punishment and basically harass gay people? If not, why not if this is a global public square.
> it's pretty easy to assume that decentralized means there aren't admins who can read private messages.

I'm not sure why you would assume that? It's not something you run on your computer, it's still a website (or set of websites). Admins of your email can also read your email, if they want, and even with gmail in the mix it's probably one of the most "federated" systems ever built.

> I would certainly assume that in 2022 it would built using encryption for the parts that are private, and aren't DM's private? Why would admins be able to read them? Is there a justification for that?

They could potentially be encrypted at rest, in the database, but that doesn't really help much. The owner of the site would have the keys to decrypt them, and on smaller sites it's very unlikely that there'd be any real chain of custody involved.

If you've ever sent a DM on a forum did you think that was encrypted? It wasn't. Or twitter or facebook for that matter. It's not really practical for any data stored on a central server to be encrypted in a way that irrevocably prevents the owner of the service from accessing it.
I typed my main comment when there were no others yet, and it's nothing like yours.

But you have perfectly good advice too, just as realistic as can be.

Lots of other good advice now too, mainly to move on, kind of like I have in my qualified way.

More inspiration you have for those who dare to rise from right where they are.

Because of what they are more certain to come out like on the other side.

A corrective upvote could not be more appropriate.
I'm pretty skeptical about the whole field myself, but miniaturization would presumably come via some new (disruptive) hardware technology. IC's weren't made by miniaturizing vacuum tubes.

Of course (back to skepticism) it's not like no one thought to try using quantum mechanics and history is starting over at the 60's. Modern QC research comes after decades of ideas failing, throughout more recent times where we have been much more technologically knowledgeable versus the early days of computing.
If it's planned for 2024, why does https://qbix.com/ecosystem put it front and centre? Between that and the mouse pointer twinkles, most people are probably going to bounce right away; the site clearly sends the message that this is not something to be taken seriously, and may well be an outright scam.

There are a few other things that immediately put me off as well, though they may be just wording/messaging. Let me dissect just half of the first sentence from https://github.com/Qbix/Platform, and what springs to mind reading it:

> Our company spent 10 years building a decentralized Social Operating System for the web

Who is the nameless "Our company"? Even if we know who they are, building on open source projects controlled by a single company is often a bad idea. How did you spend 10 years on this? Is it the open-sourced corpse of a failed commercial endeavour? Also bad to rely on. Or is it new?
Most people that spend 10 years building something in private with no users end up building the wrong thing. "Decentralised" may be true, but screams "trendy buzzword". "Social Operating System" doesn't seem to make the slightest bit of sense. "Operating System for the web", oh, so it's like Linux or FreeBSD, or maybe WASI? How is that social or web-specific? No, it's not like that at all; reading a bit further shows that it's not anything like an operating system (AFAICT), and is actually a web framework (I think?).

There are plenty of other things that look like warning signs on that page too.

These immediate first impressions together with the apparently off-topic self-promotion of your first comment explain the down votes. (For the record, I upvoted.)
We were required to replace our smoke detectors with hardwired centrally-connected models during a home remodel in 1992. Replaced those with Nest models about a decade ago for remote monitoring.
Oh well time to buy apple stock
In KZ I feel like people think that I'm getting money unfairly.

Sometimes I think the same. Like I can get $2k per month sitting in the office meanwhile road worker will wake up at 3AM, work 12 hours in rain and winter, trading his health for $300 per month.

Anyway I avoid mentioning my profession unless asked directly. It's not a question of respect, but rather question of envy which i don't like to be target of.
I love Baxter’s books but haven’t read those, thank you!
> The GPL doesn't force you to make software better for everyone.

It forces you to contribute. Read what GPLv3 states:

- Include a copy of the full license text

- State all significant changes made to the original software

- Make available the original source code when you distribute any binaries based on the licensed work

- Include a copy of the original copyright notice

Watch Linus' interview with the Intel CEO where he talks about what open source is. He clearly mentions that it's a system where personal reasons end up benefitting everyone involved. When someone contributes code for their own need, collectively everyone ends up benefitting from the individual changes. It's not an altruistic system, nobody is doing this to please corpos like MIT license usually is.
All told, the entire stack is comfortably under 200 lines of code

I'm almost willing to bet that's not counting the number of lines of code needed for the additional layers of abstraction underneath. Unfortunately, we can't read more about those because all the vpri.org links seem to have 404'd since this was written 14 years ago.

...but I did find someone who looked at it in more detail, and it is not under 200 lines:

https://dercuano.github.io/notes/small-tcp.html
- no effort

- no responsibility

- overpaid with free money

The society you deserve..

This team of former NASA employees are a relic of the past unfortunately, they should investigate other companies too, including Microsoft, that would be fun :)
They may not be eavesdropping with the microphone but they could be with an accelerometer[0].

In particular, we show that by exploiting the affected accelerometer readings and carefully selecting feature sets along with off-the-shelf machine learning techniques, Spearphone can perform gender classification (accuracy over 90%) and speaker identification (accuracy over 80%) for the audio/video playback on the smartphone for our recorded dataset.

Google was capable of warning people of an earthquake before it even happened[1].

Google has also turned individual phones into miniature earthquake sensors. All smartphones have accelerometers that can pick up signals of an earthquake. If triggered, the phone sends the message to a detection server, along with rough location data, like the city a device is in. The server then pieces together where the earthquake is happening from data collected on multiple phones and beams out the relevant alerts.

[0] - https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.05972

[1] - https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/how-google-alerted-c...
I mean Uber and air b&b are already that. This just adds a second middle man
>(1) Are you planning on having support for more than 5 devices at a future point?

>5 devices is what we estimate 1 user has (avg max). If there is demand, we will definitely add a plan to support more devices (or users).

I'd estimate for a family plan (my case) we'd have 5 users. Given that I am on HN and part of the technocrati collective we have a ton of devices, particularly once your iOS & Mac OS coverage kicks in too.

>(2) Will you have any features to support parents protection of their children?

>We already collect NSFW filter lists to be activated in the settings. Otherwise such features are tricky, as we need to start protecting against the person in front of the device, which is very hard. If you have suggestions, please share!

I think it would be person in front of the device, but a NSFW filter list is the min requirement, sounds like you already meet that.

>(3) How easy is it to integrate Safing into a home security stack, or an enterprise security stack?

>Can you elaborate on what exactly you have in mind? We don't offer any integrations with other system out of the box yet. We have APIs though that you can use.

Aggregating logs across all devices protected. I don't know if syslog would be best, as there are options

Unified console for centralized control of all instances would be a stretch goal
I mean, you can prompt me (or any other engineer) to spit out copyrighted code. FizzBuzz comes to mind… as do a number of algorithms I’ve written in the past which belongs to my past employers…

I really think we are entering some interesting territory that will likely be an interesting can of worms.
The numbers in rcxdude's post are given in percentages
Most columnar stores I'm aware of are hybrid, so all columns of a row are still colocated in the same page.
Signal is not a "hosted website," which is more the context we're talking about here. But even on those services, yes, there are ways that the owners of the service could tap or impersonate you through exploiting their own key exchange service. You are trusting that they won't do that.

This might be less true for matrix, since you could in theory be using an open source client where you have somehow guaranteed it will alert you to an attempt to add an unwanted device key to your e2e chat, but on signal you're running a binary you didn't compile against a service you can't see.

I don't think you shouldn't trust them. But you are doing so to some extent.
> (Other programs may or may not be possible to encode at all.)

Well you would want your instruction set to be Turing complete, but given that the stated goal was to only optimize for those programs for which you already added the super specialized instructions, you can just trivially add whatever “boring” instruction set you like and have uselessly checked that box, as well.

Bonus points if you use an instruction from a One Instruction Set Computer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-instruction_set_computer ) just for style, and to claim that you have further minimized the instruction set for any program outside the stated domain!
How do helmets change the argument?

Like seat belts, you can choose to wear or not wear a helmet independent of all other factors. The motorcycle or bicycle is exactly the same regardless of whether you're wearing a helmet. Also, everyone understands the benefits of a helmet. The benefits don't make everyone wear a helmet, but everyone is clear about why there are helmets.
I don't quite understand your point. "The old ground game empowered political machines." so that was a good thing?
Chances of a centralized Twitter stealing your sensitive information is quite a bit lower than N number of federated Mastodon instances run by any number and types of actors.
> Apparently it represents only 10-15% of the ads for a year

It doesn't just represent that. It also gives an indication of how advertisers more generally are thinking about where they want to run their ads in the coming year. Which might make it a rather good crystal ball for guessing what will happen with the other 85% of the year's ad revenue.
Better have an air tight employment contract if you’re expected to speak up and keep the executive management honest.
Well the review board found that senior executives failed in their responsibilities and had no project insight (but remain today), so on that part you are correct, but they also found that the actual engineers were understaffed and underpaid in face of aggressive hiring from space startups. The solution they propose, of course, is to cancel remote work, the root of all problems when the worker bees won't budge.
Could you expand on why timestamptz is preferable to timestamp? What does it additionally store?
Edward Tufte, is that you?
Need a new workbench you say? Something like this workbench? https://photos.app.goo.gl/Mwbtrzn4RYNVb8Ds5

Made out of this profile: https://photos.app.goo.gl/jaWeFdk3UutErpBW8

And storage: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Rvw64ZNaE4hskU5fA
Ultimately losing a case like this might be better for super large players like Microsoft in the long run: they'll staple blanket permissions (and maybe even indemnities for third party code you submit) in the terms of service and go ahead training their own proprietary models.

But players from startups to open source projects that lack market power will then face an impossible moat if they want to develop their own similar models.
> A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman

Obviously this title is word play, taken from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, his first novel. As I recall, the protagonist becomes so popular he can't get any work done.
It depends on how you define "quite well". They are definitely directionally correct and in the right ballpark. This is a politically sensitive research area so the researchers are incentivized to make strong claims that you wouldn't make about, say, predicting sports outcomes or the stock market.

The first link you posted is kind of punting on the hard part by saying that the reason the models overpredict warming is because CO2 didn't rise as much as they expected so if you put the actual observed CO2 concentration in then the temperature prediction comes out closer to what was observed. But the CO2 concentration is a parameter of the model, so they didn't capture its dynamics properly and then had to retroactively change it to get the observed data.

Again, I want to reiterate that I'm not disputing the process of climate change or saying it's not a problem. I'm saying that modeling it is hard and historically the models have overestimated warming.
That's wrong. If it is end-to-end encrypted, then the server admins still cannot read it.

Use e2ee messengers (like Signal) for DMs, use Mastodon (or whatever you want) for public posts.
Whatever your software, the person running it can read your messages. Unless you're using a non-web client that does E2EE, of which there are none right now.
Primm, Nevada
I could see it in the 90s since things were actually mailed. Perhaps I have a mental block picturing the rolling release cycle of an internet app as shipping.
Sounds very overdue TBH
4chan started as an imageboard for and by Japanese cartoon enthusiasts, not "a public square".

It's kind of like pointing at an institution run by edgy, lonely teenagers and asking, "How is that working so far as a ${institution_type}?"
You are comparing an idealized version of one system with reality-fied version of another; the an-cap that Rothbard was describing doesn't have much private repression by the wealthy. Idealized to idealized, they are all great. FWIW in reality, I think both will quickly evolve into control by gangs, then larger gangs/cartels; then either the latter will gradually develop manners and it will become something like feudalism, or if there's a strong contender + some symbol to rally around like religion or the old state itself, mafia state. Source: pretty much every place with central government that cannot reliably enforce law, from the remnants of Western Roman Empire to China 100 years ago to Russia 25 years ago to, it appears, modern Mexico or South Africa. And they still have/had some governance going on, at least. I don't think less governance will suddenly reverse the direction they were/are heading in.
VR is not yet and may never be at the place where you want to spend a full workday in it. It’s good in a pinch for traveling etc. but honestly it’s just not what it’s best at.
Ask HN: MechE – Firmware Developer: use for PE cert?
During my MechE career, I considered taking the Professional Engineer (PE) exam a few times, but never did as my field didnt require it. My interests(and career) have shifted to my passion of embedded software(and some EE), and I have considered studying for the FE/PE exam in the Electrical Engineering field. Is there any value in having a EE PE certification if your not signing off on electrical design related to building plans? I was thinking it could be valuable for something like SCADA systems design, amiright? If there are any PE's on here, please comment if your in the software field and if the certification has been helpful to you...
Why would you want to get kids into science? It don’t pay for shit and career/life prospects are grim. Grind out a phd for 80k starting salary? Hard pass
Well, we do agree on something! I too much prefer programming in Python over C++. I honestly hope I never have to touch C++ code again. It's been about 5 years.

I try to add typing in Python where it makes sense (especially external interfaces), mostly as documentation, but am not overly zealous about them like some others I know. Mostly I look at them as better comments.
With that at least I can be nearly certain we are not discussing an alternative brassiere.
This review of Markoff's take on the subject is rather less flattering:

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/stewart-brand-whol...

It's really a kind of cultural caricature at this point - iconic of (some of) the boomer generation, who started off as a young idealistic hippie in the sixties, got jaded in the 70s, flipped over to Wall Street yuppiedom by the 1980s, and then onto more sales deals... imagine if the movie Glengarry Glen Ross was populated by these hippie salespeople. The Wolf of Wall Street kind of got it right in the pink sheets sales center, I think. This is why the punks of the 1980s printed stickers saying "Never Trust A Hippie", incidentally.

The kind of products these Whole Earth people sold were pretty shoddy as well - for years, many California roofs were littered with defunct solar hot water systems, corroded out due to the use of cheap materials. As far as the 'personal computer industry', it packed up and offshored production to overseas sweatshops as soon as they could get their friends in Congress to push it through with similar cheery positive vibes. All the high-end backpacking 'get in touch with nature' outfits, the North Faces and Patagonias, followed suit with their local Berkeley-based factories. As this happened, homeless populations boomed all across the Bay Area and Los Angeles where those jobs, basic though they were, at least allowed people to earn a fairly decent living. It's a story of hucksters looking for a quick buck while patting themselves on the back about their enlightened worldview.

As far as high-quality renewable energy tech, the Chinese approach is sure working a lot better. Hard work spent on R&D allowed Chinese companies to master monocrystalline silicon PV production, making them the world leader on durable, reliable and high-efficiency PV, also at the lowest cost (or would be if the US tariffs were dropped). Granted, China was highly motivated, having no domestic gas and oil and the world's worst air pollution, but it's really just a pathetic story for the USA, once the world's leader in tech manufacturing. Maybe the US domestic chip initiative will help, late to the party as it is, and it's not like China is slowing down on that front either.

This kind of behavior reminds me of a line from Jim Morrison of the Doors: "I don't know what's gonna happen, man, but I'm gonna get my kicks in before the whole shithouse goes up in flames."
PBS Space Time seems pretty good. He gives good explanations and gives a balanced perspective to both sides when there's debate.
I am dumb but now it makes sense. His power is indeed over 9k.
Spammers are usually cycling through accounts rapidly. If they pay, that gets a lot harder. You’d still enforce against spammers who pay the $8, but the requirement to pay will reduce the volume and make the problem more manageable.
In the case of signal, they would have to forge the SGX enclave signature (by an intel held key) or release a client that didn’t validate that sig. Definitely possible but if I had an SGX bypass I’d want to use it on something known to be high value, and releasing a non-verifying client would at least be noticeable on android and desktop.
Backprop is a different story but I believe brains kind of do dot products
Decentralisation is orthogonal to privacy. Your messages can be end-to-end encrypted on a centralised system (e.g. Signal) and not on a decentralises system (apparently here Mastoson).

Decentralisation is about control: the Signal admins could shut down the server and kill the service. For Mastoson, if you stop one server, the others still work.
The Peep of Lil
This is so cool! well done.
It's not really a bug.

It's just that (unlike the other 3 algorithms) DFS doesn't guarantee to find the shortest path, just a path.

Not a problem on mazes with only one solution, but problematic when there are multiple solutions (or near-infinite solutions on an empty map)
A fairly lame response from Level considering the price tag of this lock. My guess is they simply outsourced making this to cheapest vendor they cut find and never talked to a engineer familiar with actual locks. The inclusion of various security pins would have defeated these simple attacks and not really increased their cost.

Having your lock defeated by the LPL is just normal as he's an expert at doing in. Many skilled locksmiths cannot open locks he able to do. Not guarding against raking and bumping, that's shameful for an exterior door lock. Then doubling down on their failure, that's Baghdad Bob level of PR right there.
By this argument, all human driven machines are murder machines. All.
If you're curious, here's a screencast of one popular canvasser-facing tool, VoteBuilder: https://youtu.be/2GJU5tIhYG8?t=1388

In addition to importing everyone's voting records, contacts/interactions with the party or campaigns, and the like, VoteBuilder also predicts a voter's likelihood to support different issues or races and chances of turning out: https://youtu.be/2GJU5tIhYG8?t=1428

Did I mention that it has voters' cell phone numbers too? And a ton of other stuff. And good luck getting it removed, or even finding out who to contact to get it removed.

(Longer intros: https://youtu.be/knCkUKUJU0k?t=533, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGP_VAN, https://support.nydems.org/support/solutions/articles/630002...)
We have state parks with these available: https://trackmastermobility.com/hunting-wheelchair/
But the thing is, there's no "outrage Twitter" that's distinct from "calm Twitter." There's just Twitter. Since the value of a social network is in its population, the natural inclination will be towards a reduction of networks, not a proliferation of them.
Available to anyone actually in most states I’m aware of.
Yes, end-to-end encryption is possible. It just needs support in clients, as well as a common protocol if you want it to work between different clients.

Mastodon has actually done some work towards that but I don't think it's useable yet, see https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/13820
There are plenty of instances who just block content that's illegal in their country. So you just could choose one of these.