skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Getting apps or websites right for the most amount of people most of the time is an incredible UX challenge. It’s unequivocally better to have employed experts with higher order tools (admin dashboards, etc) do a lot of these tasks.

Larger companies can afford the challenge and actually benefit on both ends: quick customer service via digital interface and decreased pressure on their employed humans (so they start spending less on them…).

But many businesses really aren’t at that scale. And you bet someone has built the SaaS platform for them that 1) insists they actually are that big and here’s the solution they need and 2) actually sucks more as time goes on and requirements are glommed onto it.
I do not know Vice's track record as per the credibility of their science write ups, nor if the General Editor is more concerned with filling white space while ensuring even if fluffy explanations make muster, fluffy fluff does not. Still the blame for fluffy fluff falls at the feet of the author and or their research team. I don't see the General Editor rejecting a story submission because it's true or has good grounds to arrive at given conclusions.

As far as rejecting the point outright, well for myself, I'm not in the string field or quantum physics, but I used to read some pretty reliable sources, and bleed back was put to bed a while ago (years) ... non event now as far as I know apart from a few people who missed that memo - but would consider the possibility there's been new discoveries the last few years and with new theories, the possibility is tangible once more.
Coca-Cola insider warns Jesse Watters of shameful practices from big food pharma
Meta launches subscription service in US
It’s unlikely they’re that close to the edge - the purpose of the bomb is to move it as quickly from sub-critical to critical so that as much material as possible can fission before the entire device ‘explosively disassembles’ itself - and therefore stopping the reaction.

The more naturally reactive the material, the harder this is to do.

Usually that’s done by having everything as far from critical as possible until it is already mashed together/at maximum density from the explosive lense, then use a neutron initiator to kick off the actual reaction.

Early weapons (gun type) were very bad at this, so yield/material efficiency was terrible. It’s estimated only 1.5% of the uranium in little boy had a chance to fission when it exploded for instance.

Even the first implosion weapons were far better. Fat man had an estimated 17% efficiency.

Davy Crocket style weapons were only possible because of ever more increasing sophistication on this front.

The total weight of a Davy Crockett warhead was only 4x the critical mass of plutonium would normally be at STP, for instance, and most of that is ‘overhead’.
Philosophy isn't anywhere on the Mohs scale of sciences—it's not a science at all. Each philosopher has their own idea about what philosophy is, but I'm not aware of any who think it's a science. That's one way to tell the difference—a philosopher asking "what is philosophy?" is doing philosophy. A physicist asking "what is physics?" is doing philosophy, philosophy of science. Actually it's mostly philosophers who ask that.

Science was originally[0] a part of philosophy—natural philosophy—but that's a different story. Part of Socrates' originality was that every previous philosopher concerned themselves with physics and other physical sciences, but he was just concerned with the human world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale

[0] And until quite recently! The word scientist was only coined in 1834. And "The predominant modern use [of the term "science"], "natural and physical science," generally restricted to study of the phenomena of the material universe and its laws, is by mid-19c."

https://www.etymonline.com/word/scientist
Haskell is two languages. There's the expression language which is pure. Then there's the runtime system which takes descriptions of side effects generated by the expression language (the IO type) and executes them in the real world.

The expression language is absolutely pure.
What harm, indeed?

Mentally ill people who are intending to self harm can already find such information. Whether a text generator does or does not provide it does not cause or preclude any harm to the mentally ill.
Do you mean that the EU mandates a generic email address (like ‘support@mycompany.com’) as distinct from whatever more personalised support address(es) they may push more publicly?

Do you have a link to the regulation? I've not been able to find anything.
I’m sure it was a generous offer…
Same, though on spotty net, chat may not work or may not work well. Email is great when traveling.
Top EU judge expects a wave of litigation from tech giants against new tech law
It's interesting how I just noticed it as one of the neon signs in the John Wick Chapter 4 trailer.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yjRHZEUamCc&feature=shares&t=33
My (non-brilliant) take is that LLMs are basically faster, cheaper versions of Mechanical Turk (Amazon's, not the 18th century automaton).

Like Mechanical Turk, you need to "program" by giving English instructions and the results can be (depending on the instructions) non-deterministic.

But Mechanical Turk did not revolutionize computing. Can a faster and cheaper version do so? Sometimes incremental improvements turn into paradigm shifts. But sometimes not. I guess we'll see (which is another lukewarm take--sorry).
Diversification of ruminant skull–from microevolutionary to macroevolution
Disclaimer: I know that most here are not the audience for Fox News but please keep an open mind. If there are other channels discussing this topic please let me know.
In the near future it will all be over discord, slack,etc... i have an idea about doing site refigistrations over matrix, bridged to all kinds of other chat platforms.

Still rooting for fax support though.
Unless the new search method increased revenues. Perhaps by using the same technology to find even more relevant ads. You could have ads seemlessly integrated with the text response for example.
Wait till the end war comes and they need more cannon fodder.
I've been thinking about the same thing, and have to admit that I, most of the time, AM a stochastic parrot. Being a parrot saves a lot of energy, that's probably the reason.
But it seems our brain has other mechanisms that get turned on occasionally (or run in the background) that go much beyond that.
Its great that you are able to supervise your own two kids while they engage in screentime, I’m talking about in school, where in a lot of cases, a teacher is trying to supervise 20+ kids. Its great if there are laptops for students who maybe cant afford a computer and wordprocessor software at home, but textbooks and lectures seem to work effectively.
Personally, I'm really excited for the era of generative AI powered customer support.

Hopefully it will bring low wait times, knowledgeable "representatives", and fast escalation.
Was thinking of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect.

That's along the same vein tho
There's no way to "feel" this, if you can look at items on their balance sheet you can determine whether their assets at fair value covers their outstanding debt of not. IF it doesn't, it's likely the bank would break sooner or later, if there was no bank run, it would have died a slow and painful death anyway (or, more likely, somebody would try to make risky bets in attempt to recover).

There hasn't been a buyer yet, which indicates the perhaps the assets aren't that great.
This is a fantastic comment, feels like kind of an article in itself. Thanks!
Strife at eLife: inside a journal’s quest to upend science publishing
Near the end, he recommends watching Sabine Hossenfelder's video on the subject. I think this is what you're looking for.

https://youtu.be/cP5zGh2fui0
Moody's downgrades credit ratings on First Republic Bank
You should do some reading on the altimeters in question. They were operating well outside their defined limits and parameters. If they had conformed to the specifications under which they were legally certified there would never have been a problem.

How do you harden the existing altimeters out there, equipped on thousands of aircraft?

What is the correct course of action when you discover thousands of pieces of vital equipment are badly defective? An immediate recall for all defective altimeters and, hopefully, fines for the vendors.
And yet it’s common knowledge in the Bay Area that SFO rideshare costs are surprisingly high. It seems like an outcome inconsistent with high supply of drivers and the ability to use two competing, basically commodified services.

I don’t necessarily suspect direct collusion to fix prices, but I do suspect there is some kind of duopolistic optimum where both apply similar price discrimination tactics without competing too hard on price.
Pretty sure his code quality is good. See https://lemire.me/blog/about-me/

Anyway, this is mostly a warning to more junior programmers.
It also seems likely that navigation is much more standardized. Ships follow more regular paths, so it may be easier to jump from ship to ship (at least compared to the 1700s or earlier).
Ah, I see why you disagree: if I'd read to the end of the article I would have seen that you are trying to push your own fad diet. Whipped cream for dinner? No thanks. [1]

People overeat because they've developed habits and routines over years or decades that allow them to do so. Permanent weight loss is all about breaking those habits and changing routines so that overeating isn't normal anymore.

[1] You list a daily caloric intake of 2300 calories for your fad diet, which is a normal amount and a good number to aim for. Weight loss will be slow, but slow and consistent is good, as you've discovered.
I'd love for you to explain why.
samesies :(
Was 9 years old and living in Little Rock at the time. Just 20 or 30 miles away. Remember the news reports and my proto-survivalist mom going into action. Telling me everything we’d have to do if the nuke went off.

Had relatives who lived not too far off from Damascus. I remember driving that way past the silos. Even as a kid, you could easily pick out the silos. They were hidden behind foliage with no identifying signs. But each and every one had the exact same driveway and culverts. Very different than the farm entrances and dirt roads. It was a weird time. Driving past a bunch of possible world-enders on the way to see Aunt Gloria.

That scene in The Day After, when the ICBMs were launched from the silos based out of a farm, hit me particularly hard. That’s what rural central Arkansas would have looked like.
Ever noticed that Epic does a ``good deed'' right about when they get a bad PR hit?

Call me cynical, but I'm sure that Epic would really like for everybody to talk about something else than the quarter of a billion dollar penalty they just got from the FTC for exploiting children etc.

The very same Epic that would really, really like to be able to bypass any kind of app store safeguards and review processes, no matter how flawed and self-serving those processes might be.

Yep, it does seem like it's time for a few warm fuzzy PR events to get people's attention diverted.

/cynic mode off
I too had this installed on my computer for months on end in the old days!

I imagine today, with the advancement of "AI", there would be a much better solution to the problem...

RIP SETI at home, you felt like the future.
I hate email support. If I’m trying to call, it means I have a problem that needs addressing right now. Email is basically a black hole. You never know when someone will respond, if ever.
U.S. Supreme Court asked to decide if AI can be a patent 'inventor'
“Cooperating gets you almost nothing while defecting gives you benefit”

That is the prisoners dilemma. What you have offered here is in fact an accurate statement of the payoff matrix for the prisoners dilemma in the case where the other prisoner cooperates.
> while SVB was ultimately burned by making overly conservative investments.

This isn't true, interest rates risk of securities of long duration (especially when current fed interest rate is zero) is well known to be risky by anyone who has a cursory understanding of the matter.
Thank you for the comprehensive reply!
Do you think it'll set a precedent for going after American heads of state?
Looking up broken arrow incidents is pretty horrifying. Wikipedia's "military nuclear accidents" list isn't even a full list - just notable ones - and it's still absurdly long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...

July 28, 1957, two nukes jettisoned from airplane into the Atlantic, never recovered. February 5, 1958, bomber collides mid-air, jettisons nuke off coast of Georgia, never recovered. July 6, 1959, cargo plane crashes on takeoff, explosives do not go off in the fire. January 24, 1961, bomber catches fire while in air, two hydrogen bombs dropped over North Carolina, one comes close to detonation.

And on, and on, and on. America in the Cold War kept nuclear weapons continuously aloft along the Soviet border, but the program experienced so many crashes that it had to be scuttled. In the final one, the nuclear payload ruptured: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
End-user-facing software is apparently close to art. You're trying to solve a human problem and make it pretty. But even deep backend stuff is largely designed and built around how people understand tasks.

I do look forward to ChatGPT telling me why my C++ code won't link, though.
"I used to think that today's so-called "artificial intelligences" are actually pretty dumb. But I've recently changed my mind. In this video I want to explain why I think that they do understand some of what they do, if not very much. And since I was already freely speculating, I have added some thoughts about how the situation with AIs is going to develop." —Sabine Hossenfelder
A&A (https://www.aa.net.uk/) are a UK ISP who market themselves towards technical users. It costs a small premium compared to other ISPs, but knowing that my support call was going straight to one of their engineers (and being given access to most of the same diagnostic tools that the engineer would have anyway) was always a treat. They make a point about offering any means of communication a customer prefers including, apparently, World of Warcraft in-game chat.

It felt like that one xkcd about the customer support backdoor[0] made true, and I'm surprised I've not seen any similar offerings for anything else.

[0] https://xkcd.com/806/
GitHub CLI and Hub
It does. If you red the paper, these are functions/libraries they introduce that haven't been published to github yet.
Ever tried to get someone on the phone at UPS? It's impossible. If you have a problem in store, with a driver, or anything, it's impossible to get a live human being through the UPS phone number. I googled, I tried every trick, but the system assertively refuses to grant you the privilege of speaking with a human.

I truly believe that most major companies do not want their customers to talk to an individual, and use tactics to dissuade customers from calling and frustrate those who do.

https://web.archive.org/web/20211008130458im_/https://assets...
I agree with the general point that there is, at present, far too much uncertainty to understand the long-term effects of LLMs. It will be somewhere on the scale between "semi-useful toy," "ends white-collar work as we know it," and "accidentally destroys mankind." Beyond that, there isn't much we can say.
It's not actully pseudocode. If you read the paper, these are functions/libraries they introduce that haven't been published to github yet.
City Creator
‘BreachForums’ Operator Charged with Computer Crime
I think they mean people who benefit from prison labor not private prison operators. State prisons also do forced labor for profit, legalized slavery.

But I don't think san quentin would be affected much since it is a maximum security facility.
Airbnb could kill it if they offered
an insurance to book you a hotel if the appartment is no good.

My fear in using Airbnb is prebooking in locations that sell out (skiing for example) so that if the landlord cancels or the place is bad
you are stuck having paid all the other costs and there is no where else
to stay or it is insanely expensive.

AirBNB landlord are probably more ordinary people with lives, not professional hospitality operators so I get a bit nervous.
I have a flock of chickens and yes this is true, the eggs taste much better.

I assume this translates into increased nutritional quality. A partially free range diet with plenty of grass and insects and some good supplementation helps.

The security of a consistent supply is nice. Eggs are just there. Enough to share most of the year. No need to remember or pick them up at the store which is another (minor) effort that should be taken into account in comparing cost/effort.

The setup is a bit expensive. I find the whole thing entirely worth it though. If you do it right the eggs are night and day different from store eggs.
1950 - Plane with engine trouble dropped over Pacific Ocean so that when it might crash it wouldn't crash with a nuclear bomb on it.

1956 - B-47 ran out of gas over Mediterranean.

1958 - B-47 having difficulty to land jettisoned somewhere near Wassaw Sound near the mouth of the Savannah River so that it wouldn't crash with a nuclear bomb bon it.

1961 - B-52 crashed shortly after taking off. Most of it was dug up. (Dr. Jack ReVelle obituary from Jan 2023 - https://www.ncrabbithole.com/p/jack-revelle-goldsboro-nc-bro... )

1965 - A-4E rolled off the deck of the USS Ticonderoga into the Pacific Ocean near Japan (Japan wasn't happy about it)

1968 - USS Scorpion attack sub sank somewhere near the Azores Islands.

---

This isn't a "hey, there are a bunch of nukes out there in the hands of (more) irresponsible people."
I'm pretty sure when he said "having a human-attended support email address" would rule out black holing.
> For example, suppose a startup has an Express app that made downstream requests to Postgres, Redis, Kafka, other REST APIs, etc

And besides network calls network-bound requests, what about reading from sqlite, files, and interprocess communication.

What about ZeroMQ over UDP? A remote time service. Pulling from a git repo.

No really, I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out how to deal with all this in my tests right now, and I honestly have no idea. But I doubt Codeparrot is going to be able to intercept and intelligently mock everything.
"AI Joins Hunt for ET: Study Finds 8 Potential Alien Signals" (36 days ago)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34729360
I would like to see how well it performs on the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus (ARC): https://twitter.com/fchollet/status/1636054491480088823
This has some serious consequences. My wife had to go on short term disability and the process was handled by a third party company. Man. After 2 years of trying, we still have only 50% of what we are owed, have paid taxes on 100% of the benefits and the other 50% has been cashed out by someone else according to the company.

Some of the weeks where she was at her worst and the most vulnerable, she spent entire days just trying to reach to customer support. We’ve spent more hours than what the money was worth. It is appalling that corporations can get away with this.
For me the worst is you talk to someone at a company, be it phone or support chat, and it becomes clear the person wants to help but the policies of the company prevent their customer support people from doing anything meaningful. The support person has no power, may not even be employed by the company in question, etc.

Then you get the salt in the wound customer satisfaction survey of "Did X resolve your issue today?", "Was X polite to you?", etc. If you score the person low you can cost them the job. If you score the high, the company celebrates high customer satisfaction.

You almost never see the question "Did the company put our support person in a position to help you successfully?"

The most blatant offender I ran into recently was Verizon has made a number of things like updating your autopay method app/website only. You can call Verizon customer support and talk to a human and all they can do is tell you they literally cannot take your credit card and you need the app. Because someone at Verizon decided their humans can take one time payments but not update autopay.
I’d rather have online support than phone support.

I tried to reach out to Kia recently. In my case, I don’t want to call. I explained, in writing, using their online portal. They didn’t even respond. Strait-up ghosted me. Damn.
5) Many owners replace the mufflers with “mufflers”, dramatically increasing the noise. Many of them sound like the engine is venting straight into the air with no sound dampening at all. You can hear these things at night easily a mile away, loud enough to wake you up or have to rewind if you’re watching something.

I’m not even talking about coal rollers, which are their own special breed. The noise makers are extremely common and seem to be getting more popular.
> if it's like MySQLs binlog replication where functions should be deterministic, which makes me think that they get reran on the replicated server.

For DML, MySQL replication actually allows you to choose between replicating the raw SQL statement (statement-based replication) vs replicating its effect (row-based replication). The former requires functions to be deterministic, but the latter does not.

Both modes are still technically logical replication though, as it's a separate higher-level abstraction which is independent from each storage engine's physical transaction logs.
I am in Canada since early 90s and my impression that customer support and warranty just steadily degenerate. Maybe it is accelerating today but it is not something that had started recently. And yes it drives me up the wall sometime.
Tim Sweeney has been a big proponent of open platforms for over a decade. See also: the whole Apple vs Epic thing which was definitely not a good business decision at all. I think it’s possible this isn’t really about “incentives” and is just about sticking to certain principles.
Makes amazing stuff. A worthy hot sauce billionaire.
All of the above? Which ever one is needed.
There are diminishing returns on training runs over about 90 minutes. For most people, having consistency and overall volume will far outperform one big impressive run every so often.
Have you heard of the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
> Remember jokes about hold music, foreign accents and phone menus?

the only reason those jokes are not current is that either the phone line is now gone, or because you don't call it, knowing in advance that it's torture. The phone menu and tiered human support is worse now than it's ever been. ime the foreign accent problem is a little better, but i also rarely call so ymmv
You're right about the affiliate model. But most NPR stations in all but the largest markets predominantly run nationally syndicated content. Creating and syndicating that content is the NPR mothership's largest cost center, averaging 58% of operating expenses FY18-FY22.

Corporate sponsorships are, at an average 39% during the same period, the largest source of funding. Contributions (what we'd call donations) are 12%.

Put another way: Local donors may (or may not -- I don't know) form the backbone of funding individual stations. But corporate sponsorships fund most of the content that appears on most of the stations, and also funds its distribution.
They really aren't lol