skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If I had a penny for every time I hear this.. yes they had big layoffs, but they also hired like crazy for a long time.

Fuchsia is maybe 1/4 product and the rest is a long term infrastructure investment. If Google had lost interest they’d have no problem shutting it down by now, for instance stadia rose and fell in a shorter time span than all of fuchsia.

I don’t know whether fuchsia will “make it”, heck a frustrated enough SvP can probably kill it if they really wanted to. However, fuchsia never lived in the same world as the rest of Google, or even the platform & ecosystems org (Android & ChromeOS), not really.

Nobody ever expected a new OS and kernel to be a mainstream success in single digit years. It’s an insane project to take on, and ironically that insanity keeps a lot of the short term opportunists away, specifically the kind that leaves a crater after them when they leave..
Measuring reality does affect what you observe
You get it back up and running quickly because it's so simple and easy to deploy a new server and load the backups on to it.
if i was an sqlite user, i really wouldn't care at all about google switching from sqlite to that thing in chrome.

From the readme:

> LevelDB is a fast key-value storage library written at Google that provides an ordered mapping from string keys to string values.

it's a completely different thing from sqlite. sqlite is a relational database (which can also do key-value storing, I guess).

my educated guess is that google started with sqlite, then reached the peak usefulness *within chrome* and only then switched to developing its own custom solution.

if anything, this is a testament to sqlite and how far you can go with it before needing a custom solution.
https://www.toradex.com/torizon they do and it works quite well. Super handy to have CI/CD and easy OTA updates with containers.
Pixel still had recent major software issues (Crashing when calling emergencies, a year after the first reports), or ongoing issue, like massive battery drains in certain conditions.

I bought a Pixel 6, I don't think I'll buy another Pixel again.

The official pixel case got destroyed due to wear in not even a year (my own 3D printed case in TPU now lasted longer than google one).
The official pixel case also caught some dust and scratched the glass of the back.

The pixel without a case is so slippery it slip alone on any surface not perfectly flat.
PBS Joins NPR in Quitting Twitter over State-Backed Label
They Need To Know. NTK is a contextual requirement and shouldn't be solved by admitting them into an enormous pen whereby they instantly gain access to information that they don't, in fact, need to know.
What would you consider a lesson lernt from that perception? Never ever start anything new unless you want to bet the company on running it forever?
I've never worked at Google so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Everything I've heard (mostly on HN) about working there is that there are simply too many perverse incentives to abandon products. People get promoted for creating exciting new products and then leave those products behind at their new position.

Up-and-comers are also incentivized to do the same thing. There seems to be no appetite whatsoever for hiring "steady hand on the tiller" type people. The whole company DNA is built around hiring elite graduates fresh out of school.

It's the classic "too many chefs in the kitchen" problem.
The internet is not the only technology that has had a significant impact on our lives. One such technology is the printing press, which was invented several centuries ago but had a similarly transformative effect on society. Its influence can even be traced as a precursor to the development of the internet.
> Surely the people working at Google understand how all these shutdowns look to outsiders, right? I have to imagine so… they’re smart people, and a ton of them lurk here on HN.

Yes, but we're not the people making the product decisions.

Stadia's shutdown was inevitable in part because we had already established this distrust, and also because leadership handled every aspect of it incredibly poorly. It was technically impressive, but the economics relied on the addressable market actually being willing to go all-in on the service.

Sure, you can blame part of it on the promo culture encouraging people to move to new and shiny projects, and part of it on the fact that we release a lot more experimental stuff than you see at more established companies, but there's also plenty of cases where there was exactly one person who understood the codebase and was keeping the product running, and said person is no longer at the company for one reason or another.

In my opinion, Bard should never have been released in its current state, but, that's leadership for you.
The problem with "fascism" is that practically from the beginning it has been used loosely as a term of disparagement. The most careful attempt to define what is and isn't fascism, while shunning polemics, is I think Stanley G. Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980). He has some recent articles on the overuse of "fascism" in political discourse. (https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/01/antifasci..., https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/01/antifascists-aft...)
Why not give the original source https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/12/...
The one time I read the article before the comments...
I believe its running on Sangria (Scala's biggest GraphQL lib)
I frankly don't care that they have a version like this - my aunt would be probably better off, if the cat pictures were backed up in case of a hard drive failure.

What I can't tolerate is that they don't offer a straightforward power user version of the system. I need the platform, because I need software that was made for this platform, and that's it.

And the amount of disrespect is just aggravating. Second-guessing my settings, obscuring or infantilizing errors, updates and security updates being used to push unwanted settings and features - nonsense.
My take on this is that it’s a result of stupid luxury.

There’s a lot of admin positions. I’m not sure what the right amount of admin is, but seems stanford has too many doing too little and too much. I didn’t go to Stanford, I went to way lower rated schools but it seemed to me that my interactions with admin were all unpleasant and funny in a Brazil-style way. And whole I would like them to be better, I never thought that more people would solve the problems.

Stanford admin staff has doubled in the past 40 years [0] and they have more admin staff than teachers. Students did not double during this period.

I think admin staff are more insidious than just driving up costs (although that’s important). I think it’s an issue of giving smart people good pay and bullshit work. Perhaps with good intention they want to be constructive but choose bikeshedding topics and really drill down to do something to stay busy. I can only imagine the amount of work that went into the decision to cut sports teams and which ones, dozens of committees and papers and consultants over something completely stupid that shouldn’t even be worth a single agenda item.

I remember an analysis after 9/11 that partially blamed the attacks on Middle East countries shift of cutting all the busy work for graduates so smart people got masters degrees and had nothing to do. [1] So the boredom ended up leading to more terrorism.

Obviously, high tuition and kangaroo court pogroms on privileged kids is better than blowing stuff up. But perhaps the solution is to not have make work positions and release people to create real things.

I think a possible solution is for alumni to stop donating and state reasons. But that might result in just hiring more admin staff to promote more donations. (I know a contact who works as one of 5 admin staff in a 4th tier subregional university that works on alumni promotions and is justified by a 1.2x return on salary based on the increased donations. So, for example, their cost is $500k per year and they produce a newsletters and a ton of spam and bring in $600k so it’s good right?)

I think a Stanford degree is still very valuable and I would spend more time reading a job application with a Stanford degree, but what’s the tipping point?

[0] https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-administrative-bloat-is...
[1] https://slate.com/technology/2009/12/why-do-so-many-terroris...
“ Gambetta and Hertog propose that a lack of appropriate jobs in their home countries may have radicalized some engineers in Arab countries. The graduates they studied came of age at a time when a degree from a competitive technical program was supposed to provide a guarantee of high-status employment. But the promises of modernization and development were often stymied by repression and corruption, and many young engineers in the 1980s were left jobless and frustrated. One exception was Saudi Arabia, where engineers had little trouble finding work in an ever-expanding economy. As it happens, Saudi Arabia is also the only Arab state where the study found that engineers are not disproportionately represented in the radical movement.”
It’s interesting to me that they continue to spawn and nix products like this despite the reputation damage it causes.

I think the 'problem' is that reputation damage doesn't really impact Google's revenue. They get the overwhelming majority of their money from publishing adverts, with a significant amount on their own properties (search and YouTube). It really doesn't matter if a bunch of gamers decide Stadia screwed them over, or if some devs decide to avoid GCP because they killed Reader. Google still makes a staggering amount of money no matter what.

The only way Google killing products will ever impact the company is either if people have an alternative to Google Search (very unlikely) or if people stop wanting to work for Google because they see it as a dead end working on things that only last a few years (also unlikely because $$$ talks).

Google will continue to launch, run, and then kill products forever. I suspect that if you're at Google and you're not working on ads or something that displays ads then you're being paid to build something frivolous that won't go anywhere mainly so you don't go and work at a different company that could impact one of Google's cash cows. I'm a bit envious if I'm honest. That sounds fun.
I asked GPT about some snorkel trails near my house, as I wanted to know what it knew of them and see if there was anything I didn't know about that I should find out before I snorkel again.

First of all it told me that the area is not suitable for snorkelling, and that it is dangerous here. When I corrected it and reminded it about the snorkel trail it confidently corrected itself, then directed to me to snorkel 6 miles out to sea (where a windfarm is) telling me that the sea is only 2 to 10 meters deep there, and safe to snorkel. This is not true, and it would be a very dangerous place to snorkel there. But its confidence was scary.
I'm so happy to hear that. The initial 20-hour estimate was just guesswork really. I made 14 hours so far and we haven't even got through the engine, never mind the transmission, steering, suspension, fuel, ECU, brakes, and so on. Probably be more like 50 hours in the end!
I didn't know they used containers in cars. I guess it makes sense when you think about it but it always felt like more of an "enterprise" solution to me.
both their release cycles and what they consider as stable might differ and not necessarily mean one is better.

yt-dlp still claims to keep track with the parent project. Most would use it for the additional functionalities it provides over youtube-dl.
For those unaware a "Locost" is a Lotus 7 self build replica from the incredible 1996 book "Build Your Own Sports Car for as Little as £250"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0854299769/ref=dbs_a_def...

The original donor car was (I think) a Mk3 Ford Escort, obviously they are a collectors car now.

There have been a number of revisions now, it's published by Haynes the publisher of many car repair manuals. There is also a whole network of small business selling parts, you can buy ready made chassis and body panels for them.

I was gifted the book in the late 90s as a teenager, always planed to one day build one. And the fact the house I bought a few years ago has a garage with an inspection pit is only making it more tempting.
The link is below, not sure what HN does with the original submission links but they appear to change.

https://www.santiagomartins.com/the-flowbite-jekyll-starter-...
The list is a bit dishonest.

Google Code Jam was not a product, and it was an event that was a net loss in terms of revenue, which is hard to justify maintaining when you are cutting thousands of jobs.

Google Street View is part of Google Maps, the post even says so.

Google OnHub is a one time hardware product. Nobody is blaming Nintendo for killing the Gameboy Color when it stopped producing it.

I don't see how any of the 6 things mentioned here have been unjustifiably "killed".
I apologize for not being clear enough. Thiel means that the IT world is unregulated, so that's where most of the progress has been. Various government agencies have saddled traditional tech (energy, medicine, electrical engineering, etc.) with intense regulation that has made it toxic for investment at all but the highest levels which is itself risk averse in the way that scientific breakthrough often needs, squeezes out scrappy tiny companies, and discourages people with revolutionary ideas from wanting to enter them, because safety and compliance concerns have run amok. And this is all borne of a cultural shift toward a fear that traditional scientific progress will kill us sooner that help us, maybe due to the Bomb and Cold War, but I forgot whether he precisely named an event.
Europe's JUICE mission to launch for Jupiter's icy moons
We have no clue if they’re conscious or when/if they will become conscious. It is unfounded hubris to act like we do.
Yes.

"This person said the group’s leaders didn’t explicitly state what would happen to the cloud division if it didn’t reach a top two position by 2023. A commonly held view inside the group was that Google wouldn’t continue investing money if it failed to it meet its goal, the person said. "

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-brass-set-202...
Interesting... I had a HP LH4 back in the day...

(quad p2-era Xeon @500mhz each, they made a rackmount model, but the thing had to be like 6U and weighed a tonne... I had the "pedestal" model.)

So even back then they weren't on my radar.
Lots of this stuff surprises me too. If you haven't already - check out Tim Hunkin's Secret Life of... series. https://www.youtube.com/@timhunkin1
Pattern matching and referential transparency are much more "obvious" or "natural" (meaning closer to the way we humans think) than javascript and its idiosyncrasies (think that even something like `x = x+1` in imperative languages is an infamous tripping point for beginners). C++ is definitely anything but obvious.
When hear about hardware products turning into bricks after the manufacturer pulled the plug on cloud services, I wonder how long it will still be legal.

Legislation should be put in place so that features not requiring a connection shall work offline.

In north America, there is a lot of political pressure for some environmental issues but nothing about planned obsolescence.
The taxpayer / consumer *always* pays. Eventually, one way or another, that $22B will find it's way back to the taxpayer / consumer in higher fees, higher interest rates to borrow, etc. And if The Fed printed the money, the taxpayer / consumer buys in inflation.

Editorial sidebar: Nice of NPR - whose journalism is too good for Twitter - to call it a rescue, not a bailout. Perhaps not State Affiliated but Deep State Affiliated?

/rant
Terrible business model, all kinds of weird limitations on what devices could run it and tech which never lived up to the marketing. Very predictable.
Why does Google get grilled so badly for pulling products? Don’t other companies do the exact same thing, and isn’t it their full right to abandon projects when it no longer makes sense?
The fact that "technological protection measures" have any bearing on legality is stupid. Implementation details shouldn't affect if something is legal or not. It seems like this is adding an rule that is easier to watch people with because the media conglomerates couldn't sure people for doing other things they didn't like.
You got that wrong, I am trying to point out that this article really actually contains no content other than sporting a click-baity headline.
The dedicated Streetview app was finally killed because streetview is already integrated in regular google maps. To me, that seems like a good reason to discontinue the dedicated app.

I don't get the reasoning behind this article. Half of this list is side projects which didn't work out, which is understandable to a certain degree. The article feels like blogspam riding on the hypetrain of people disliking when google discontinues products like Stadia.
The Pixel 5a had a design flaw where the screen would die permanently if you dropped it from a couple of inches, even in a case.
Thanks, and sorry you got downvoted as well (for no good reason, obviously - that's just the way HN works sometimes).
The whole point of Asimov’s stories is that even if we could do that, it doesn’t even come close to guaranteeing positive outcomes.
Put in concrete terms, do you want to be one of the two engineers exiled to maintaining Reader because you pissed someone off to keep the geeks off Google’s back?
Where are they now though ?
Everyone's first time with each of those subjects is prefaced by "a few hours of video" (or equivalent).

Nobody goes from doing nothing to doing everything in one go. It's the sum of many iterations of education then experience on many smaller subjects.
Misinformation.

> require you to turn off your mobile data yet

Wifi calling and VoLTE is not mobile data.

> phones from mid 2022 seem like abandonware already

Samsung supports updates for multiple years. Mid 2022 gets you previous samsung model - S22, where S23 was released this year 2023.
Who arbitrates the fairness of such a system? Does anyone get a chance at redemption? One of the reasons for the corporate veil is to lives aren’t destroyed except for the most egregious behavior. For sensitive professions they’re licensed with review processes that aren’t as steep to get at the principals. But I would rather the world allow assholes to be sure we don’t plow under the innocent or close the door to reform in a human life.
Very generally on a washing machine the first thing to go will be the carbon brushes/bushes - these are usually relatively easy (and cheap) to replace.

If it isn't the brushes then it is likely the control module - this is often so expensive to source new (and can be pricey 2nd hand) that there isn't much point in replacing.

My dishwasher needed a new board, and despite only being 5 years old, the manufacturer wanted 80% of the cost of a new machine. Even on the grey market I couldn't find a good price, and going 2nd hand didn't turn up the parts I needed. Was very sad to scrap such a new piece of hardware.
I doo feel that part of what defines what people will and won't tolerate within a disruption to their lives is spectacle. People seem to love to rail against the ordinary, while they crane their necks and gawk at the extraordinary.

Nobody stops to peer into hole full of infrastructure and machinery that's turned a 4 lane road into 1.

Everybody seems to want to stop and marvel at the upside down trailer engulfed in flames though, despite it being an equal inconvenience to their commute.
Exactly. Why be sneaky when you could go the tried and true consulting -> productized consulting -> product route without worrying about losing your reputation?
Value lies in the eye of the beholder. If you think there is value in a factually incorrect, nonsensical, and obviously click-baity titles then sure, go on enjoying articles like that.
Last time I used large amount of generated code, it was pristine and easy to debug. ( Java )
What do you have in mind
> We also got ourselves informed about ‘fair use’ under German law. We even appointed a lawyer, at our own cost, who did his own research and also came to the conclusion that what youtube-dl does is perfectly legal and covered by fair use

That sounds strange. There's no "fair use" doctrine in German copyright law.
hey, random googler(s) maintaining google scholar: thank you! it's awesome.
I believe the DLL alone only makes the game moddable. Thereafter, there's still a lot of work to do to swap out low resolution and poly-count assets for more detailed ones.
And I don't even think people are the primary market, but large industry; they're all about min/maxing, and don't care where the meat that goes into e.g. chicken nuggets or sausages comes from.
Google Search is in great perils because of ChatGPT.
What other company has a literal graveyard of products? https://killedbygoogle.com
This should be part of the "How to Overengineer Anything and Everything" series.
Does someone with no programming experience at all say the same?

Have also seen cases where people with background in Physics, Mathematics found functional programming more obvious. Obvious is relative.

Even for people with programming experience - once I got hang of Haskell, learning and using Scala professionally became more "obvious" for me.
ytp-dl is also many, many times faster than the original, in my experience. youtube-dl is almost unusable for mass downloading by comparison.
I don't think there's a misreading. McLuhan argues that there is value for FOSS in FSF remaining independent and "radical".

FS & OSS being in sorts of a (shotgun?) marriage, does not mean that they need a shared Facebook profile.
All this because nobody wants to change the ELF loader to better isolate dependencies of binaries
I like this argument because it doesn’t even attempt to have a solid foundation. Just pure, unadulterated articles of faith.

This way one can apply it to e.g. putting GoF-capable virus labs in every city in the world. After all, innovation is just good and stopping innovation is just bad (and maybe an existential risk itself, with no attempted explanation as to how!).

The real magic (and the thing that will, I promise, eliminate all risks to all humans) will be when every household has its own automated virus synthesis lab and it’s just hooked directly up to an AI so you can have it synthesize contagious molecules from plain English. This is Good and not Bad because it’s Innovation!
some already exists but adoption rate is slow for few reasons like not needed for most people or the type of content they host, the crawbacks compared to off-the-shelf hostings when you don't need a censor proof solution, no standard or stable solution ( multiple new products keeps proping up).

The technology alone will never be enough or widely available if the judicial or legislature keep attacking and restricting their use.
it seems its not. they say 30% of NPRs funding come from local affiliates paying for NPR programming. And on average those local NPRs get 8% of their funding from government. Do the math, that means 2.4% + 1% of NPR comes directly government
…and watch as SW consulting engagements go from $50,000 to $50. I fear we’re racing to commoditize ourselves. Will we look back at the hiring frenzy of 2021 as the peak?
SQL function for SQLite to directly query OpenAI's ChatGPT