skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
At a technical level, what prevents Google from deploying unblockable ads on YouTube? I’m honestly surprised adblockers are able to block YouTube at all.

The easiest way to prevent an adblocker from blocking is to make ads and real content indistinguishable in frontend code and network requests. Tie ads and real content together in a way that if you block ads, the video also doesn’t load.

Or in the case of video ads, you could stream the ad as part of the video itself instead of a separate pre roll.

If I had a billion dollars of revenue on the line, I’m pretty sure I’d be able to make the YouTube player serve ads in a way that evades adblockers. The fact that they haven’t been able to do this makes me think I’m underestimating the difficulty of the problem.
> At some point these people are either going to buy premium or turn off the ad-blocker.

Or they stop going to YouTube. In the past 12mo my use of these platforms has reduced a huge amount. I no longer visit Twitter or Reddit because they blocked 3rd party apps, forcing me to view adverts, I would rather not be a user on a user hostile platform.

Deep down, most of us know these are huge time sinks providing very little real value to ours lives so it doesn’t take much friction added by the platform to make people turn away from their bad habits.
A lot of absurd moralizing here about "you're stealing by not watching ads".

I keep adblock on for most sites because ads are so intrusive and often malware vectors. If advertisers want my eyes they need to not be obnoxious.

I started blocking YouTube ads in particular because it kept serving me ads that were brazenly homophobic ("how gross and smelly is gay sex? Find out!")

I feel no moral problem with this, if you do then your priorities are bad, IMO.

Edit: as a counter example, ubo doesn't seem to work on Twitch but I have never attempted to find a different solution as it has never run ads worse than the usual "lying about how good a product is" you always get with marketing. Further, I don't see them very often because the channels I watch the most I buy subscriptions.
> Taking the meds for cleaning out your system the day before is far worse than the procedure itself.

It depends... in the US I just had to count backwards from 10 and fall asleep -- but I've tried being give a wooden stick to bite -- that was a different experience.

In Denmark they usually just use local drugs, no sleeping, but last time it was no big deal anyways :)
I think that’s the challenging part. A product manager is supposed to stuff holes in your team that no one else currently does. Do you have a strong TL with a good product sense? Then the PM should probably spend their time talking to customers, and not interfere with the engineering team so much.

Do you have a good UX team, but the engineering team is just a bit too big to be comfortable? Then the PM should work with the team to streamline communications and processes.

The hard part about this is that on the one hand, you need a PM that is experienced enough that they can set up processes and be disciplined enough to make sure they are followed. On the other hand, you need a PM that is able to embrace the chaos on aspects of the teams organization where it is beneficial for the team. Oh, and also they should be a domain expert, if possible. Know SQL. Know how to talk to management. Etc.

I think if you have a good one, it is a strong force multiplier for the team. If you have a bad one, it is a force subtractor.

And it is extremely difficult to tell beforehand (or even while they are actually working in that team!) which kind of PM you have. It’s one of those roles that, if it’s done perfectly, people won’t be sure whether you have done anything at all.

But I agree with the premise that there are probably too many bad ones in circulation right now.
I was with you until this part:

> Women aren't perfect, but there's definitely got to be some kind of change for men as a collective. I know some great male partners, but I also know that they're out weighed by so many men I know personally.

This is a bit like saying: “White people aren’t perfect, but there's definitely got to be some kind of change for black people as a collective. I know some great black folks, but I also know that they’re outweighed by so many blacks I know personally.”

(I suspect that this is the reason your comment has been downvoted.)
Lots of mmos have low tick rates. I believe Eve Online is once per second. Originally WoW was like 2.5/s. You don’t need high tick rates in MMOs (but you certainly have to design the game systems around expected server tick rate).
Venus' atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and sulphuric acid which is a far different composition than Earth's atmosphere. My guess is the heavier molecules that make up the atmosphere are what makes it far denser than Earth, and gravity likely has much more to do with it than magnetism.
From first principles: any person’s most limited resource in life is their attention, and YouTube should be grateful that anyone is willing to dedicate any attention to videos on their service at all considering the power it grants The Algorithm to shape our ways of thinking about ourselves, each other, and the world we inhabit.

Ads, paywalls, and all other forms of access-control are a way of obscuring the relationship between programming and programmed, inverting it to me about me wanting to access them instead of them wanting to access me. It’s like that Cartmanland episode of South Park where telling people they can’t come to the park makes everyone want to come to the park.

This is not unique to YouTube or other streaming services, just the newest and most effective in the long line of newspapers, Hollywood, radio, TV, etc, and why all of those previous forms of media are as well-aligned with the US Government as is “““Big Tech”””. Ever gone for a Cultural Victory in Civ?
I think the increase in spending on spreading/amplifying certain kinds of information is because there's a greater depth and breath of information available now that people can and are using to derive their own opinion.

Influencing people was less expensive when media/news/information/etc was relatively limited.
Better options don't magically appear. Especially in an unsustainable market: nobody wants an audience of users who don't watch ads and don't pay. Where's the money to make the better option coming from?
Thank you. This is important. Too bad our website doesn't make it clear at all.
Agreed, but I think the key is: targeting + good creative. Ad networks often allow targeting to some extent and I suggest targeting your audience as much as possible. 2nd, if the ad isn't relative to me BUT is interesting or funny, then I also often don't mind that.
But you can pay for YouTube Premium, they already have an alternative to an ad supported business model.
JavaScript trends that are going mainstream soon
From compiled languages, to databases on the edge, a lot of new things came out last year that will go mainstream this year.
788 million us, vs 44 million, taking top google hits.
A review of a book about Ibn Sina (aka Avicienna - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna>) and al-Biruni (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Biruni>) who were Persian polymaths of the late 900s CE.

Well I say 'Persian', but both were born in what is now Uzbekistan (Ibn Sina in 'Transoxiana') apparently.
canadian anecdote: i havent seen my GP ever. He just oversees resident (student doctors). Ive had chronic health issues for 3 years now without much relief, despite having been to the doctors office 20+ in that time. Most of the time they deflect me from specialist care.
How would this compare to current core web vitals audit tools? What metrics are you looking at (a11y, CWV, etc.)
If YouTube provides a service that removes ads ONLY for $4.99/month, they would already have my money. However they have to bundle it with YouTube Music and other stuff into "Premium", then never mind.
I allowed ads for a long time, believing a site should be able to earn revenue for the content they provide.

I started blocking ads when ad networks failed to properly vet their ads and allowed malicious ads to be distributed.
Even family guy had a episode about this. Rich Father-in-law is sitting on a cure for cancer because he owns the pharmaceutical and can profit more off cancer treatment.

Not saying that FG is a good oracle to go off of, but if it's such a prolific mindset that comedy shows are riffing on the concept the people up top have definitely crunched numbers on such factors.
How's that? Its algorithm is not exactly making the world a better place. It's filled with propaganda from all corners of the political spectrum with about zero responsibility.

But there is also TikTok, which is even worse. So yeah, in that way you could be right.

If only we could pay for the things we use, and only that.
Or, use an LLM to detect angry comments and delete them before any humans have to deal with the BS
A lot of the HN comments are about YouTube, but this article is really about how toxic the internet technology enthusiast community can be. The uBO volunteer teams are trying their best to give people the tools and information they want, but they’re becoming the outlet for people’s anger instead.

The part about people failing to follow instructions but then taking the time to complain about the instructions not working hits home for me. My limited experience being on the front lines of a much less popular project was marked by similar experiences: Many of the people who took the time to make accounts and participate in online forums seemingly had all the time in the world to complain about us, but couldn’t be bothered to read basic instructions. In many cases people would write pages of complaints about us and rant on social media about how awful we were before they’d even try contacting support.

Not everyone is awful like this. It’s actually only a small number of people. However, it doesn’t take many people to make forums and social media into completely toxic places for a subject. The first impression for anyone coming to Reddit or other places for support might be that it’s a dumpster fire, even though it could be as few as 20 in a vocal, toxic minority setting the tone.

The internet is a weird place. The demographic of users who complain that the volunteer support staff for their free ad blocker which lets them avoid watching ads on their free website being toxic is not at all surprising to me.
What's your bank? Mine always charges me $2 for mine
I already have this one (much cheaper, German site) :https://www.forumslader.de/forumslader-pro/

But I also successfully used a combination of simply a shortly rectifier, some Zehner diodes without any buffering via batteries. It would be great to have the buckboost just after the rectifier IMHO. I would somehow expect it to work much bette if one could simple pass down the higher voltage in USB-C if you are riding faster rather than converting it to 5V.
Show HN: I’m writing a “US Banking and Credit for Foreigners” guide
So I’m writing a guide about accessing US Banking & Credit as a non-US resident.

It’s work-in-progress but the first couple of chapters are accessible for everybody.

Any feedback is appreciated!
>> Maybe that’s how YouTube will win this war of attrition.

YouTube will win because they are financially incentivised to so so. UBO and other free blockers will fail because there is so much downside, and no upside.

Wars are always won by those with the most resources, whether it is money or people or both.

I say this not to gloat (I'm no fan of google) but rather because it can be useful to understand both the goals, and where the goals are leading to.

I know HN doesn't appreciate some truths being spoken, and I imagine I'll be down-voted, but YouTube is paid for by advertisers. Content creators are paid by adverts (and embedded sponsors.)

Yes we all want our entertainment for free. Yes we done want ads. Yes we dont want to pay for our content (or our software.) I get that, I really do.

But content creators need to eat. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth. Since I'm not chipping in, I appreciate advertisers doing so.

Personally, and this is not a recommendation, or a judgement, I don't use an ad blocker. I'd there are too many ads I stop visiting a site. For the rest, including YT, I understand what I get and I understand what I give. I get this is not the popular HN position. Each sees this his own way.
If you're talking about menu being grayed, it's because you did not start the trial. I wanted to make the trial to start immediately after creating an account, but stripe force the trial to be attached to a price. So I'm forced to let the user make the price choice (without paying) even for a trial which I absolutely hate and would be love to have a better flow. I want and will find a solution to that.

If you're talking about content to try directly after making an account, you're right. There's none for now. Something definitively can be improved there. Noted.
I did some napkin math on this and I think 5 USD will not replace the ad revenue or even half of it. Keep in mind that this is the price only in the developed world and in the developing world both the YouTube premium price and ad price are very low and generate little revenue.
> entitlement towards free services like uBlock origin.

To be fair uBlock origin users feel entitled to use YouTube, an extremely expensive operation to run, without giving anything in return.

I say this as someone who uses Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin. Websites are nigh unusable without ad block. But as far as ads go YouTube is far and away one of the least offensive imho.

If you don’t like ads you could choose to pay for YouTube Premium or simply not use the service. Demanding to use the service for free is rather entitled.
What's the viable alternative to YouTube? Tiktok?
Would you say that the cynicism or just you, or a general thing?

I stated my hypothesis as 'expecting too much' but I'm not particularly wedded to that specific hypothesis.

It's just my observations suggest it isn't just the apps per se.

I'm not blaming you btw. It's just you aren't going to find a solution if you're looking at the wrong thing.
Could you send one over? my rx 580 is beginning to explode and as a student I dont have much money to buy another one
This is missing the point entirely. Finding one ICE that's heavier than an EV doesn't change the fact that on average, EVs are considerably heavier than ICEs. You can pick individual examples from either set that are light or heavy, but on average EVs weigh more and hence their tires wear more.
While the comparison is not 1:1 but the result is the same in the two cases. I don't see the ads, one of them I have more control on how effective I can prevent ads. Also in both cases I pay for the bus from my money so that I pay for the internet connection from my own money. The internet is built on free protocols and I can use it whatever I want.

Google does not pay TCP/IP..etc designers/operators a portion of theid ad revenue. Why would they feel entitled to the the internet infrastructure they don't pay for?
An Interactive Introduction to Probabilistic Data Linkage/Deduplication
>For men, now with things like #metoo, the risk has been raised.

Yes, that was my entire point. The movement didn't only mean that more Weinsteins got what they deserved. It also lowered the bar of what is considered "creepy" and raised the risks of behavior which is perceived as such, whether legitimately or not.
Lots of tech people in the dance scene (west coast swing, lindy hop, zouk, etc.) — and lots of women too
I’m not hearing that. Safari has its share of CVEs, including many of the jailbreak methods of the past, meaning one click to root the device. Apple isn’t any better at software than any other html engine vendor. And by having a monoculture on iOS, every time there’s a WebKit bug 100% of iOS users are guaranteed exploitable. There’s zero net security benefit to banning Gecko and Chromium (and any upstart innovators).
AFROTECH™ Conference is the largest Black tech conference of the year! Get ready to connect with a global community of 20,000+ Black tech innovators during a series of digital and in-person events filled with dynamic programming on emerging trends, networking opportunities with industry leaders and conversations with top tech recruiters.
yes although you can be in your 30s and subsidize your bad boy lifestyle and persona to the 20s women and ignore the “now I’m ready to settle down” older woman. its even more fun and attractive if some women felt out of grasp in your 20s.

in fact you can do this in your 40s, 50s, 60s

as long as you don't fall on hard times
:( So sorry to hear this. I don't use Lunar, but know many people who love it. They all appreciate the work that you are doing!
Approximately everything RMS has done in his life is "misbehaving". That's why the FSF is famously ultra-combative.
How have you lost so many transit cards? I current have 4 iterations of transit cards for the CTA. I also still have many transit cards from my visits in different countries.
It uses unbound for the DNS resolver. Perhaps the DNS forwarder uses dnsmasq, but I don't use it.
There were gold mines:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_mining_in_Scotland

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_gold
Govinfo.gov and the house provides the entire us law corpus but it's weird
But I don't understand why this would be annoying at all to the developers. I have absolutely zero conundrum with just ignoring a request if I'm not in the mood to do it.

Most of them I even delete outright, but I still have requests that were sent to me in 00s that I'm keeping just in case one day "I'm in the mood".

And yes, people request (demand!) crazy things, and have done so for decades. There are even "If you don't do it, then $threat" guys. And my area of software is generally industrial/professional....
Most the problems described here are just bad software engineering. Never seen a PM with any oversight on which DB is used, how shiny the tech is, how the API works, any of that. It definitely seems like there's a lack of coherence and customer focus, which would be in the PM's wheelhouse to deal with, but that's it. Need a better lead engineer with the time and authority to implement good practices.
Dungeons and Dragons saved my life
I can’t decide if I liked XSLT or just the out-of-the-box thinking its convoluted solutions demanded.

XPath was a joy to use, and I thought XHTML made more sense than HTML. But I was naive to think the “more logical” technology would take over!
Another factor to consider is political climate and the character of the ruling class. Political and cultural changes can make some authors suddenly unfashionable.
LLMs could be great tools for measuring the impact of an author on the culture. They have the data to recognize when new concepts and motifs are introduced by a piece of literature and disperse forward in time through the culture. They can somewhat measure the breadth of the influence. You could build an index of the cultural impact of a source from zero to one, and rank them. It's a more direct and general measure of influence than citation count.

It would be interesting to list the sources with the most impact but the least recognition. Does the dark matter of literature have a large pull?
I think deadmutex is pointing at a bit of irony and hypocrisy at how we're saying it's bad for people to feel entitled to free adblock support (and ask for more) but champion people feeling entitled to free videos by blocking the ads or refusing to pay for no ads.
More than 10% of telemetry-enabled Firefox users worldwide use adblockers. In Poland it's 15%. In the United States, Germany, and Russia it is closer to 20%, and in France it is closer to 30% [1].

[1]: https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior (see near the bottom of the page)
I don’t think tech comes out better on this scale than the happiness one.
I’ve been working on a tool for making products using vertically integrated stack of an editor, renderer, and collaborative workspace. It was a lot technically.

This product is a first real tangible outcome which I’m still working on. Any ideas and feedback would be greatly appreciated.

The reason for product to exist is to explain how to access the greatest financial market in the world as a foreigner who can travel to the US to get:

- customer protection

- free float

- acquire points for hotels, flights

None of it is new to financially-savvy Americans but few foreigners know that anyone (other than citizens of embargoed countries) can access the same tool belt.
It’s actually a high effort app trying to pass as a low effort app. The worst of both worlds
I guess my point is that cleaner technology is already being avoided by those companies, because they can save a buck by polluting in international waters.
Add to that David Deutsch's point that "Good explanations MUST be hard to vary"
What makes you think that Youtube will "lose"? From a technical perspective, they have been rather conservative in their efforts so far. It can get so much worse, they could bake ads directly into the video stream or automatically randomize their API.

Don't forget that Google also owns Chrome, which by its dominance over the market can be used to effectuate DRM (such as widevine, or web integrity). They also own the Chrome Web Store, and they can ban any extensions that bypass Youtube ads (they already ban extensions with the ability to download Youtube videos, strangely they allow downloaders for any other site).

Google has a lot of money, and a lot of fingers in critically important pies, to make their wishes a reality should they deem to do so.
My experience was B2B. I was certainly expecting a lot more of the problem identification and solution generation work that you described.

The difficulty was that the owners at the top had unshakeable ideas about what the product should be. That's ok, single minded vision can be good and all that. In my very hands-on sales engineering role I'd make things that my prospects were asking for, put them in the product, they'd buy it, and my prototypes and hacks and tools would end up getting refined, hardened, and supported by the implementation team. It worked well because everything I did had big dollars attached to it (so the org itself didn't mind) and the product advanced in a way that the market wanted.

The problems arose when we put in the product management process - the whole committee/requirement/signoff thing the article describes and I mentioned in my earlier comment. That created a formal bureaucratic mechanism for various players to stop all the ideas I had. Before, they'd be fait accomplis necessary for winning a big deal. Now they were just ideas divorced from value from some guy who should've known his place. Back then I was hopeless at understanding how to get a group of people with different agendas to agree on something (I think it's called 'politics').

> if you were simply ordering an existing backlog, who was defining the new items to add to the backlog?

It's over 15 years ago but what I remember is that there were thousands of semi-structured documents which represented things that, with the new product org, got turned into backlog items (stories, epics). This was part of an attempt to move engineering to a more agile way of working while creating a product function to support it. So it's more that we didn't have a backlog as such, then we stood it up and triaged everything we already had into it. All this was happening while the company was trying to learn about agile. I remember day long meetings where we all tried to argue about whether technical tasks belonged on a backlog, and if not how you could write a user story for remediating a piece of technical debt. Basic stuff but none of us had a clue.
They don't explode.