skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I learned a little bit of COBOL when I worked in a finance company, just to help on call stuff. And I think you’re right. Learning COBOL the language is easy. It’s just an imperative language with no fancy constructs. But jcl and the specifics of db2 and mainframes, and also the weird terminal emulator you need to use to work with them is the hard part. Java is 100x more complicated than cobol, but mainframes and the surrounding infrastructure are very alien compared to todays stuff.
"This security scheme wouldn't work because of these social factors" _is_ a technical argument. Security is very specifically about making sure the right people have access to a resource and the wrong people don't. Social aspects are inherent in this. Therefore, in the context of security, social arguments are technical arguments.

Arguing that the myriad local police departments of the United States in particular do not have the security posture required to keep access to a data portal secure is a technical argument against government-backdoor encryption.
SmashOrPass AI
We’ve seen manufacturers abuse ongoing access to devices to turn off features the device came with at the time of purchase or convert one-time-fee features into subscriptions. One of my concerns is that security updates are strictly defined in a way that prevents this type of regulation from being used as cover for these shenanigans.
This appears to be a misguided application of AI, essentially operating under the premise that "meetings are useless, so let's automate them." However, the value in meetings often lies in the consensus-building among participants, especially when it comes to action items, ownership, and deadlines. Simply replacing this process with AI risks losing that collaborative nuance and the reason why you need the meeting.

For example, meeting notes are notes all participants agree on (action items, owners, dates, etc.).
> And Monique Ryan is already on thin ice -- can't help but wonder what the people of Kooyong think about her spending her time on this.

She's a federal representative, not a state representative. I hope you apply such 'non-local' arguments to all federal representatives equally.
Too much evidence to even begin to enumerate, presumably.
This is why I said “most”. People here are freakishly unlike the average user and I think it’s quite reasonable to optimize for 95% of the market.
> The FCC recently issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [2] for a cybersecurity labeling program for connected devices.

That appears to me to be the wrong way to go about this, and it has specifically to do with how IoT security is a problem.

The most severe case of IoT security problems we have seen were things like mass botnets, where plenty of devices of the same type were hacked and then used for things like DoS attacks. Notable cases include the DoS attacks against Brian Krebs for some of his reporting.

The important thing to understand here is that the device owner is not the primary victim. That's a third party.

This is not about consumer choice, because consumers by and large do not care, because they are not the people being affected by this. An optional security label tries to adress it as a consumer choice problem, which it isn't.
Because 4x4 Matrixes are a linear transformation of 3 dimensional space.

Deep Learning chose TPUs / Tensors because GPUs (and other computers) are faster at matrix multiplication than any other operation. Many many other representations of neural networks have existed over the decades, its the matrix-based "Tensor" that performed the best and took off.
California and Florida are the 1st and 3rd most populous states in the country. We hear about the effects of climate change disproportionately in these states simply because there are a lot more people affected (by sheer number) than elsewhere. Otherwise the problems are the same as everywhere else.
Step 1: Take a year or two straight out of highschool and travel the world and dont think about a career until you do such, then go to college for what your found passions are after widening your horizons.

Step 2: dont get married or have kids in your 20s. Youre still discovering who you are as a person.

Step 3: ...

Step 4: Profit.
I'm surprised that we haven't seen an animated movie about bats similar to something like The Rats of Nimh. Their world seems so complex and mysterious. Much lore to ponder for a young mind.
> automatically does the cool aperture settings for a foreground focus, blurry background, and other fancy things.

Its not actually doing any cool aperture settings, its faking it all with software. And depending on the software stack and the picture in question, it can do a pretty bad job at it. I do appreciate the effects at times and use them myself, but on many shots I'll notice the depth of field effects being used in places where it shouldn't like too far on the shoulders, turning the edges of someone's hair to mess, a secondary subject next to but just slightly behind the main subject getting radically out of the fake depth of field, etc.

Most of the photos I take day to day are on my phone's camera, for sure. But when I'm actually wanting to really take some pictures, I bust out an actual camera. My current main goto is my G9x Mark II, which is a lot of fun and can still send photos straight to my phone after shooting so I can easily send them to people right away.
It's a pseudo-scientific law
Education is even worse than that. Education itself is highly competitive even down to the pre-K level in some places.
Much happier with my symptoms since I switched to using (unscented) Dr Bronner soap. All organic and food safe ingredients. I buy the liquid and use it in a foaming dispenser.[0]

The same folks make an actual detergent called Sal's Suds. Very drying but works well. I did use it, but these days I use the regular Castile soap for everything. Your mileage may vary of course.

Unscented oxyclean (they do make it!) is a godsend for laundry, dishwasher, etc. Absolutely zero residue.

For biofilms, cheap dollar store nylon scrub brushes (no "gummy" handle) are fantastic, and also their cheap multi-pack toothbrushes. Soaking in soapy water for 5-10 minutes (I set a timer) is surprisingly powerful.

Almost accidentally, I find myself using just one drinking cup. This does keep it very manageable.

I rarely burn things anymore, but 3M scouring pads from Lowes have saved more than a couple pots. :)

Adaptation is a continuous learning process! Hope some of this can help or inspire. cheers.

[0] https://www.lisabronner.com/making-a-foaming-hand-soap-with-...
You want the honest answer?

Because security consultants slapped that on some checklist and Heathrow will now bugger contractors that build Android app to implement root checks.

Enterprise apps are full of this bs. I partially blame Google because it made checking for integrity so easy that every app owner now things it needs to use it.
I wonder how companies will simultaneously deal with these FCC regulations in the US, and the proposed regulation to not update anything without intelligence approval in the UK.
> Is it just me that don't have the necessary cultural references to find it appealing?

Yes, RGB has been popular for many years now. Nice that I can pick any color or color pattern I like
This has been my big question with all of these Generative AI stuff that will

- write emails

- go to meetings

- any other type of activity that involves sharing information.

Humanity didn't develop emails, or have meetings, or communications because it some sort of ritual to a strange god (barring the meetings produced by the priests of agile to appease the Agile God). We communicate in order to share information from one person to another for a reason. So if we have a workflow where someone uses AI to generate an email, that results in a meeting that is then summarized by AI, that is then sent to an inbox that is then scanned and the contents of which is summarized by AI. What was the point of any of it?

At no point did a human learn any new information. It was all just various LLMs generating symbols that changed nothing in the real world.

What is the end goal of this? Or is the hope that if we get enough AI hooked up to each other it will magically just start creating and selling products and money will magically appear and everyone will be happy?

At the end of the day the internet revolution was all about Information Technology. That information exists to be consumed, understood and acted upon by human beings, to change our understanding of the world. If we are just having AI talk to AI to talk to AI, it was all an exercise in pointlessness.
how's the moonlander btw? i'm thinking about getting one specifically for work.
Sure, but that was true 20+ years ago too and they came to your door.

I don't disagree with the larger point per se, I just find it interesting that it changed.
Dell XPS or Surface
in ublock origin I have:

www.youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer a.yt-simple-endpoint path[d^="M10 14.65v-5.3L15 12l-5 2.65zm7.77-4.33"]:upward(ytd-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-mini-guide-renderer a.yt-simple-endpoint path[d^="M10 14.65v-5.3L15 12l-5 2.65zm7.77-4.33"]:upward(ytd-mini-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-rich-item-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-grid-video-renderer,ytd-rich-item-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-search .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] ytd-video-renderer .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-item-section-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="trending"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-search .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-rich-shelf-renderer[is-shorts]
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer
m.youtube.com##ytm-reel-shelf-renderer
m.youtube.com##ytm-pivot-bar-renderer div.pivot-shorts:upward(ytm-pivot-bar-item-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-compact-video-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-search ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-compact-video-renderer,ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-single-column-watch-next-results-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer span:has-text(/^(0:\d\d|1:0\d)$/):upward(ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
youtube.com##ytd-rich-grid-row, #contents.ytd-rich-grid-row:style(display:contents !important;)

which works a treat (for now, but sure will remain possible)
So many good comments here, but I keep thinking about how thankful I am that PCs don't work like smartphones, and it's sad it's regressed to this point.

Android has so thoroughly defeated itself, that I feel crazy to say I'm thankful that microsoft doesn't run the PC world like google runs the smartphone world.

Windows itself is a bastion of stability and sanity compared to android. Things do not need to be upgraded prior to the hardware actually breaking of old age.

Beyond that, just like google, microsoft doesnt control the entire hardware-software pipeline. But just like google, microsoft is in a place of power where they could have made it incredibly inconvenient to own your PC, by dictating norms through a store, or discouraging any deviation of environment by safetynet.

My memory is bad here, but did this sort of thing ever end in antitrust lawsuits for microsoft in the past? And, when can we look forward to the same for google?
A good night's sleep in orbit
I'm not sure that's true. Computers used to be smaller, and had a hard time with very large files. Swapping out of limited RAM and so forth. Not fast.

I think long files are solely caused by somebody incapable of software design at any level. They just keep typing and never think about structure or separation of duties or whatever.

I recall the WindowsCE DHCP service was one large file. An enormous busted-ass straightline pile of garbage code that didn't handle most errors. Written by some intern. I re-wrote it for our platform and removed all the issues.

Microsoft of course didn't want my code because, arrogance.
True but, angle grinders make a lot if noise and very conspicuous sparks. Of course thieves will still do it if they can get away with it, but it’s not a very quick or stealthy method.

Picking the lock, in the other hand, is pretty fast and won’t attract much attention. Thief just needs to be sophisticated enough to have the correct picking tool and practice with it a bit.
BMW have some of the worst retained value in the car industry.
Awesome!

Thanks for engaging, where the rubber meets the road!

Hopefully, you are also looking into other venues, as well.

HN has a great group of folks that represent some of the most cutting-edge tech, but IT runs on Java 8[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19877916
Please also consider Ferris Sweep: https://github.com/davidphilipbarr/Sweep
The issue is that whatever "audit" or "protection" method you create, whatever technology you use to ensure only the "good guys" get the information and the "bad guys" can't, it's only layers added on top of the real issue:

The final key is always going to be a single number. Once the key is out, it's out. There's nothing you can do about it being out, and no way to know it's out unless your audit system somehow caught it beforehand.

And that key (or these keys, which doesn't change much between "one number" and "two billion numbers" in terms of difficulty of stealing or storing them) is going to be worth trillions of dollars.

Again, the bank vault thing is an apt analogy (up to a point): You can add all of the security "around" the vault, guard rounds, advanced infrared sensors, reinforced concrete with weaved kevlar in it, etc... But if someone ever gets the dollar bills in their hands, then they got the bills. And if they somehow manage to bypass the security systems and not get noticed as they go in for the steal, you have no way to know who they are or that they did it.

Now, that is completely fine for a standard bank vault: after all, you need to physically send someone in, it's pretty rare for people to actually want in the vault so security can be pretty slow and involved, it doesn't have that much "money" inside (I'm pretty sure no bank vault in the world contains more than a handful of millions at any given time), and above all it's "physical" stuff inside: you'd immediately see if it's gone, it's not like someone who got in the vault can "magically" copy the bank notes and leave with the money while leaving the vault seemingly intact.

It's less fine for a "server" vault, where not only do you store everything so it's worth trillions, but people need to access it all the time because "investigations" and "warrants", and in a fast way because "terrorism", and if there's a breach or a mole or anything like that then people can copy all of the data inside and leave the server seemingly intact.

I think thinking that there's a technical solution is misunderstanding the problem, and that anyone pretending they "solved" it are always going to minimize one risk or the other. The governments and regulators don't get that yet, because it looks like it's just a technological issue to build "the vault". But the real issue, the fact that "the vault" doesn't matter when the consequences of stealing the contents of the vault are risk-free for bad guys but so immensely impactful for citizens, is the reason why technical solutions won't ever be enough.
LLMs constantly show most promise for work that really has very little value add, and I wonder given just economics if this will guide behavior towards not even bothering with its applications. Starting with cover letters, and then towards arbitrary content generation. Some companies already started doing this, if a meeting is not really productive you don't need to go or can feel free to leave. Not sure how many people would even read follow up notes, if it's free I guess another thing people won't use.
CMU Database Group's Modern C++ Bootcamp for 15-445/645
This collection of heavily commented modern C++ code aims to teach students with prior C experience the bare bones of coding in modern C++ constructs.
Good ol' Firefox, keeping up its reputation as the only user-respecting major browser.
And recently there were discussions about browsers disallowing self-signed certs, even for local host, and going https-only, and the supposed excuse is you can edit your local root store.

Well now what?
You don't need to go back 60-70 years to the bad old days of 9Ns with leaking carburetors, slipping clutches, and transmission-driven PTOs. A 20-30 year old 4WD compact tractor with a diesel engine, hydrostatic transmission, and independent, live PTO can similarly last forever and be easily maintained (as long as you don't buy a Deere).
> A zero knowledge roll up is not something your average poll worker could work out on scratch paper.

There's no need to do calculations by hand. An electronic voting system only needs to be verifiable by the use of public data. Everybody walks with a computer.

If you mange to create a system that does that, well, the entire world is quite interested on it.
> I've always thought so too - who is banking on their phone?

Most people these days.
> Accordingly, incorporating our modifications, we propose, for purposes of the IoT labeling program, to define an IoT device as: (1) an Internet-connected device capable of intentionally emitting RF energy that has at least one transducer (sensor or actuator) for interacting directly with the physical world, coupled with (2) at least one network interface (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) for interfacing with the digital world. We seek comment on our proposed definition.

I think this definition would apply to stuff like phones and cars, right? If so that's great.
I assume this will be lower cost through plastic casing, M1, and low RAM/storage.

Currently the M1 is sufficient for 90%+ of the population (IMO), it is the RAM/storage that will outdate most Apple computers. If Apple sells this in the $599-799 range with 8GBs of RAM that would be a solid offering for most K-12 schools.
Hopefully not, because that's incorrect. AUE dates for AFAIK all currently sold Chromebooks are 8 years from release.
Google still updates the built-in for Android 7. They don't really abandon device support for old OS versions like iOS tends to.

The current situation is that the CA bundle doesn't receive any updates from Google. If your manufacturer repackages their CA bundle and still updates your device, you'll receive a new CA bundle, but I don't believe this is guaranteed.

Furthermore, if you're still running Android 14 after six years, your issue is with the manufacturer of your device. The latest version of the CA bundle will still work of course, but you should really be at least four or five Android versions higher at that point.
LowCost MacBook + Office 365 for Education...
20 years of programming languages predate C.
Right, I do agree with what you are saying but it's also an example of perfect being the enemy of good enough.

It's an unfortunate situation, but if the barriers are high enough there will be fewer people willing to foster. How many good-enough homes are out there, even if they are not perfect? At what point is the risk of being placed in a less than perfect home worth it?

I have just a few more years until all of my kids are out of the house and living on their own, and fostering children is definitely on my mind. We have already started by hosting foreign exchange students.
True, but I’d not describe all those associated bits as finicky - they’re stable and very well documented, particularly compared to modern cloud tech.
As far as I remember FCC about 8 years ago didn't liked OpenWRT, and even enforced on TP Link to lock it.
California and Florida were indeed sold where the idea of a perfect climate - by land speculators.

In both places the reality of the situation was not what was promised:

California with periodic drought, and a general shortage of water in the places people wanted to live. Drought which brings fire, followed by wet years, which bring mud. My entire childhood was punctuated by dry, fire, rain, mud - rinse and repeat, like seasons. Are there more fires now? I dont really know to be honest - particularly with forest fires, its hard to separate that from 100 years of bad forest policy in regards to letting forests that need to burn periodically burn.

Florida with periodic hurricanes which would come thru and wipe down everything built. Are there more hurricanes every year now? I'm not clear on that either - I will say while the frequency seems within norms, the size of them does seem bigger because of how much warmer the gulf is.

Climate change may be making these problems more extreme, but the fact is these problems are not new. Neither state is experiencing weather that is all that much different than in the known historical record - both in the time they've been settled by europeans and from what we know from things like tree ring records.

Until we acknowledge there is no practical way to put the climate change genie back in the bottle, and that we need to switch from trying to decarbonize to making our built environments more resilient and focusing on sustainability, articles like this that tie every change in the climate to anthropogenic climate change, are little more than doomerism.
Unpopular take, but; good.

If you're going to go vegan/vegetarian, just _go_ for it. Stop pining for things you can't have. No, nothing that is not steak will taste like steak — and there's nothing wrong with that! A vegetarian diet can be delicious and good for you. Own it.

I get that it should be obvious, but I've more than once picked up a "steak" with heavy double quotes.
Eh you didn't miss anything at the old place if you see the new one. Hope you can make it to a party later this year!
https://archive.is/7Bg0B
Nice - thanks for the info! I had no idea about the Toy Story 2 fiasco as well so this was a great read :)
Our system is antiquated and only really exists because of lobbyists. Some stans will try to pretend there is some value add, there isn't.
Jobs scorned the “Chromebook” segment (I can’t even recall what the jargon was... “netbook”?) when the analysts were crying that apple would die without it. There’s a different team on board now but I’d bet the logic is unchanged.

But they aren’t ignoring this segment, rather they’ve differentiated the iPad instead. For you (I assume) and me this is absurd, but then again the Chromebook is pretty useless for most HN readers too.
I recently purchased a new M1 Macbook Air 2020 model) on Amazon for $750 and it is great. I had previously owned this same model but with 16GB of ram instead of 8GB so I was a bit nervous, but it has been a non-issue.

I suspect Apple is using Amazon to test selling the Macbook Air at a significantly lower price than you can get on their website. The only thing I think they could do to make it cheaper would be to make it out of plastic instead of aluminum.
Paris?
Why do you have an assistant attend the meeting at all if they aren’t directly participating. You could distill from a recording, or have your assistant distill from a recording, or maybe someday have an AI distill from the meeting based on your interests?

I get the value in being in on a meeting is popping in when necessary (ask question, clarify something from your team, etc…).

Many meetings could also just be done more efficiently as chat discussions.