skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This ain’t it. Your comment presents a metaphor of the government as a "bucket with holes" to argue that increasing its size leads to inefficiency and corruption. While this metaphor captures concerns about government inefficiency and debt, it oversimplifies complex economic and political realities.

1. *Government Size and Efficiency*: The assumption that larger governments are inherently more corrupt or less effective is not universally true. The efficiency and effectiveness of a government depend on its structure, governance, and accountability mechanisms, not just its size. Many countries with larger governments, measured in terms of spending relative to GDP, have high levels of public service efficiency and low corruption.

2. *Cyclic Nature of Politics and Economy*: The idea that political and economic cycles follow a rigid, 80-year pattern correlating with major wars or revolutions is an interesting hypothesis but lacks empirical evidence. Historical events are influenced by a complex interplay of factors including economic conditions, political ideologies, technological advancements, and international relations, which do not follow a predictable cyclical pattern.

3. *Budget Balancing*: While fiscal responsibility is important, the concept of balancing the budget is more nuanced than simply equating it with good governance. Economies can benefit from deficit spending during downturns or for long-term investments. Conversely, austerity measures during economic contractions can exacerbate downturns. The key is sustainable debt management rather than a rigid adherence to balanced budgets.

4. *Historical Correlations*: The correlation you draw between certain years and significant historical events like the World Wars, American Civil War, and American Revolution is intriguing but seems to imply a deterministic view of history. This perspective overlooks the unique and varied causes of these events. Historical patterns can offer insights, but they rarely dictate future events with the precision you suggest.

5. *Contemporary Examples*: Citing Detroit, Greece, NYC, and California as examples of government failure oversimplifies their challenges and successes. These cases involve unique economic, social, and political contexts. For instance, Greece's high unemployment and subsequent recovery involved complex interactions within the EU and global financial systems.

6. *Revolution and Change*: The suggestion that mismanagement inevitably leads to violent revolution is a drastic oversimplification. Political change often occurs through democratic processes, reforms, and non-violent movements. While fiscal mismanagement can contribute to unrest, it's one of many factors that can lead to political upheaval.

While your comment raises valid concerns about government efficiency and fiscal responsibility, its conclusions are based on oversimplified analogies and deterministic views of history and politics. A more nuanced understanding of these topics recognizes the complexity of government functions, the diversity of historical outcomes, and the multifaceted nature of economic policies.
Don't worry the Thai government won't care about the environment.
I do wonder if it would be accurate enough. Maybe it would be useful to type two diabetics who have their blood sugar under decent control. I’m not expecting true CGM level accuracy.

Still whatever they could get if it was reasonable enough to be useful I’m sure insurance would much rather give people an Apple Watch for a relatively low price then pay for expensive one time use medical supplies over and over.

I mean how long would it take before just the price of test strips would add up to the cost of a fancy Apple Watch?
I like TUXEDO Computers. A lot of sellers that sell machines with linux installed are basically just reselling these

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en
Vint Cerf is accumulating Dave Mills stories
None of what you say is in any way incongruent with what I said, though. It may mean BlackBerry didn't think it could be done, but it doesn't mean that no one in the company could conceive of a phone without a keyboard. They just didn't think it was a good idea or the right time, and didn't try.

The original post I replied to claims Apple is a magical place of unicorns with ideas that exist nowhere else. I'm arguing that it isn't the case, and that it's the willingness to try and execution ability that matter. It's more likely to be dismissing the idea that kept BlackBerry from doing it.

There is a lesson in there that speaks to the "we can't possibly figure out what they will do" in the original post. You very likely can. You also have to be willing to give your ideas the mileage.
From section 8:

Perhaps paradoxically, the success of UNIX is largely
due to the fact that it was not designed to meet any predefined objectives ... Our goals throughout the effort, when articulated at all, have always concerned themselves with building a comfortable relationship
with the machine and with exploring ideas and inventions
in operating systems. We have not been faced with the need to satisfy someone else’s requirements, and for this freedom we are grateful

And then 8.1:

The success of UNIX lies not so much in new inventions but rather in the full exploitation of a carefully selected set
of fertile ideas, and especially in showing that they can be keys to the implementation of a small yet powerful operating system.
It's terrible that it's starting to look more and more like they would rather let people go to prison rather than just fix the software and make everyone whole before it got out of hand.
From Code Complete 2nd edition:

"Engineers in every discipline learn the limits of the tools and materials they work with. If you’re an electrical engineer, you know the conductivity of various metals and a hundred ways to use a voltmeter. If you’re a structural engineer, you know the load-bearing properties of wood, concrete, and steel.

"If you’re a software engineer, your basic building material is human intellect and your primary tool is you."

Page 819
moore's law is not dead.
Weren’t they asked by the ruling class to have more children? Besides it meant more farm hands, more soldiers.

People have been mostly replaced with machines and bombs.
You don't want to eat field corn unless it's very young, as roasting ears. Then it's goood.

I'm not talking about eating it just as corn. It's starch. It's oil. It's food component parts to use to make things humans enjoy.

Corn is everywhere and in everything. In the US at least.
Yes -- that is right. Back in those days, you could build the linux kernel from scratch on a laptop with 16MB of memory! I used to commute (on a weekly basis) from Boston to NYC, and you could build and boot and test a kernel between taking off from Logan airport and landing in La Guardia! I can't recall the vendor of the laptop that I used, and the internet is indicating that maybe the 16MB was an overestimate.

I think that the adjtime call went in in Linux 0.99pl15 (there were different numbering conventions back then).
My argument wasn't on the orbital potential of suborbital vehicles - rather, I think the odds of Virgin successfully developing an orbital vehicle are better than even. Or more succinctly

P(achieve orbit|reach space) > P(reach space)
I like the part where you flip the neighbor’s power off for a couple seconds. That’ll teach ‘em to get a UPS!
They just use “AI” in Japan for everything lately. There is probably next to no AI in that system.
Ethanol
Awesome! I had some instances of "digging so deep into a fascinating problem that I forgot the initial reason I started digging" :)

It actually looks like a reasonable system overall. Maybe a bit bloated on the node.js side (what isn't?), but I wonder if they just had that toolchain already in place/experience with it, even though it's overkill for the system as-is. Or maybe they just googled how to do networking and copy/pasted the top Stack Overflow answer that included Socket.IO.
AI tab manager, interesting.
> Being that this is Drew, I wouldn't be shocked to know that this provider choice has more to do with a anti-establishment manifesto than any practicality

Not wanting your traffic MITM'd is anti-establishment. That's where we're at LOL.
I read that it was more about splitting it over 5 years and that for big companies this would actually help them (since they have the runway)
22 Rhode Islands == 1 Maine
Most of these are understandable, but the one talking about Messages integration on iOS gives me bad vibes. Specifically a “recently sent links” API for Messages that the user must opt into wouldn’t be a problem but full access to message data is not something that I (and I suspect many others) would ever consent to a third party app having (even if Mozilla is the dev).

As for extensions on iOS, Orion has the capability to install extensions from both the Chrome and Firefox extension galleries which would suggest this either isn’t actually a problem or slipped past App Review and has somehow remained available for years.
That __restrict isn't useful to the compiler in this function, since it can already infer that there is no mutation from the access patterns: it's a leaf function with only non-atomic reads and no writes. (It's mostly only useful when you interleave reading from one pointer with writing to another with the same type, or when you call an opaque function before reading from a pointer.) Indeed, if you look at the generated assembly, the two are identical. The timing differences are likely random variation.
I keep a spreadsheet with all my recurring payments. I do this so if a credit card expires or gets compromised, I have an easy list of places I need to change it. That spreadsheet also contains the cost of each thing (monthly and yearly). The columns are the company, what it’s for, the card/account it’s using, the monthly cost, and the yearly cost. It’s very useful to have. Everything is on there, from my property tax to domain registrations, and Netflix.

In my budget I allocate $100 for subscriptions and just look to stay under that. I found giving myself allowance to spend X amount made me chill out a little, so I wasn’t always trying to cut at all costs, since they are hard to avoid now. That budget item avoids the death by 1,000 cuts, while also letting me not sweat the small stuff.
Curios what was the price the developer paid for these devices.
Nah not really, regardless of virtue people prefer America for starting companies and anyone claiming otherwise is just coping.
But that wouldn't be proveable, if they never stated their principles. Almost anyone could then claim to be principled if they didn't state what principles, unless we knew the innermost contents of their mind; or unless their behavior was grossly self-contradictory (rather than nuanced, or deniable).

> There's no magic in principles being explicitly stated.

Sure there is: we can see the audit trail of precisely what principle they claimed to adhere to and, when. For example in this case the defence for Paula Vennells (and other key figures) is going to be very interesting. What if Vennells blames expert advice, or the prosecutors, or Fujitsu?
But it seems pretty obvious these lawyers were covering up for their customers. That would fall under being fraudulent, no?
No one is saying they have to leave their house. Don’t be hyperbolic and reductionist. What’s being said is that once again, the leg up which greatly benefited boomers does not exist for millennials.
> Turns out, I need a 3A fuse, so I ordered one from Amazon

OP might want to watch Louis Rossmann's video about buying things from Amazon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
It also smooths traffic flow because people are no longer slamming on their brakes, possibly in reaction to brake lights in front of them; instead they're keeping more distance and driving more predictably (down hills, to stoplights)
Recent and related:

Dave Mills has died - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39051246 - Jan 2024 (63 comments)
> -30 C is really incredibly cold.

Environment Canada shows that it was -19ºC (ambient) at the time. The article asserts it was -22ºC with the windchill. Still very cold, but I find it interesting that -30ºC has shown up in the comments more than once. Where does that come from?
It feels like there's a kind of tectonic shift happening due to various economic and technical factors ... maybe driven somewhat by the advent of practical AI. For me I think it's going to be better to build stuff as a solo entrepreneur than try to swim against the current.
Next step - format all their SSDs to teach them to make backups :)
If I know what carriers fly the route I always go direct to them. I might check the Skyscanner type sites to confirm which carriers fly the route but I've never booked a flight through them.

Generally if you book direct it is much less hassle especially if you end up needing to make any changes to your booking. Booking via another party means they control the ticket and this makes flight changes, cancellations, etc much more difficult down the road. Booking direct means I can simply change in the airlines app -- often with no or low fees. And if I end up needing to call, I can call the airline directly or visit their office and change my tickets -- both of which is not possible if the ticket is held by another party.

Booking direct also allows you to access a wider variety of fare types. The carrier I fly most often (Air New Zealand) has a complex fare structure that doesn't fit in with most resellers. This means resellers usually only offer the more expensive bag/food/etc-included fares whereas I can get the seat-only fare directly saving quite a bit of money.

Really there is no benefit I can see booking with a third party. Always go direct to the airline.
> ... but Nim doesn't seem as easy to use to me.

Hm... Can you elaborate why? For me, Nim is the easiest language to work with. It really feels like Python with static typing.

This one is probably a hot take, but I believe that static typing is vastly superior and easier to think about than dynamic typing. In languages like Python or JS, Lua, etc. it's not like they don't have types, types are merely hidden, you still should be aware of types. They just move responsibilty for handling type errors from compiler to the programmer.

Or maybe because Nim is extensible? I know that big point of Nim is macros, and macros in general are hard. But in my experience I've never felt that I need to write one, when using Nim.
I felt pretty bad about it, but my curiosity took over :) It was only the power for their Energy Manager though, not the power to the entire apartment!

In any case, I doubt they were actually using this Energy Manager thing anyway. The number one feature listed on websites selling these things is "Earn two code credits under the code for sustainable homes". I assume you do not need to teach people how to use the thing to earn these credits...

https://uk-metering.net/products/netthings-energy-manager
Thanks dang, someone more industrious than me could turn this into a CompSci or Tech term paper or great Medium/Substack article (or series). Also computer ethics case study as well for those professors out there, but maybe it needs to cook a while longer for more details to come out
Please learn from this.

Any time something is expensive, and you do not want to pay for it, cite the environmental impact in your refusal.
2nd ultra-large structure in distant space challenges understanding of universe
Nice! This is similar to the solution here: https://github.com/python-trio/unasync
Related: https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/01/19/platform-tilt/

(via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39059255, but no comments there)
Different flavors of set theory are slightly different. It doesn't take long to get into "specialization".

Are there different notations for propositional logic and predicate logic?
Security through obscurity, I suppose? Seems to be a common thing with UK-based home or energy automation edge devices....
WebUSB has... some issues.

For example, there's a huge song and dance around a web site only being able to create and use a FIDO2 credential for its own domain (in other words, badactor.example can't get an assertion for goodactor.example). But with WebUSB, you can just have your web site directly communicate with a USB authenticator and send it whatever domain you want, not even using the browser's webauthn APIs!

So... google blocked USB devices that respond with FIDO2 HID Report Descriptors from being usable over WebUSB.

There are just so many of those types of issue, and the standard response seems to be playing whack-a-mole instead of requiring that a USB device be "opt in" or user-selected, which would make more sense to me. It's a huge attack surface.

I don't like that this means you can Do More (TM) with Chrome(ium), but I'm also pretty happy not to have my web browser be allowed to reprogram my motherboard's fan controller hub.
Show HN: BoilerBot – Amazon Alexa Prize Challenge 2 TaskBot Code, Purdue Team
The open source reimplementation is not as quick or robust as the closed source implementation - hopefully I'll be able to find time to make upgrades soon.
The launcher with its Holo tabs and the icon style look more like Android 4.something (I to K) to me, by the way. Android 5 (L) was the first Material Design release (the one[1] that had actual coherent principles behind it).

[1] https://m1.material.io/
enjoy your 15 minute prison city lol
It might be profitable to offer terms where billing was related to use instead of canceling or not. Like I'd be more inclined to have an account with more services if they cost less (over time) and required less attention. Maybe there are lots of people like me. Note that I do currently engage in the responsibility that you speak of, by avoiding subscriptions.
Hi Brajeshwar, that was a nice comment. It convinced me to read the article, and I'm glad I did.
Most people assume that most crime is carried out by poor people desperate for money or by gangsters. So a well-off person committing a violent crime is surprising. I wouldn't expect a JP Morgan front desk employee to have their employment mentioned in a headline, but if they were a manager or senior trader, I absolutely would.

I submitted this particular story because it corrected some inaccurate speculation that was making the rounds here the other day.
DragonFire laser: MoD tests weapon as low-cost alternative to missiles
I described the reason in more detail in my previous comments up-thread: because I understand the cost is amortized and it's an intuitive billing system that supports two different watching habits: consistent watching as well as bingeing. Refusing to pay because I binge means prices increase for people who don't binge. Pricing issues like this are really killer for niche streaming sites that I want to support.

I generally disagree with dark patterns that make it onerously difficult to cancel, but many streaming services (like Netflix) don't make it that difficult and pausing and resuming payments is already easy enough. I just have to actually do it, not ask them to read my mind.
Just context embedded text captured with webpage "scrape" so you could research knowledge from disparate websites and keep growing or journaling a process you're going through rather than just separate links or stuffing in folders.
Can you try steel manning?
You can do farming with vertical solar panels, these are better, will produce mornings and evenings.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/agrivoltaics
I think it's quite reasonable to want to offer upgrade pricing, especially to customers who recently purchased the old version. It's just good business to ensure your recent customers don't feel screwed over having to pay full price for the new version when they just paid full price for the previous version.

The issue here is the inflexibility of the App Store, coupled with the inability to handle payments and licensing separate from the App Store. While this tends not to be much of an issue on macOS (due to macOS allowing installing applications from sources other than the Mac App Store), it very much is on iOS as well as in cases like this (as Apple has restrictions on certain kinds of Safari Extensions being distributed outside of the Mac App Store).

As a customer who purchased the StopTheMadness Link Unshortener Bundle about one and a half years ago (and therefore missed out on the upgrade pricing, while other customers who purchased StopTheMadness years earlier received upgrade pricing), I do feel screwed over. Not by the app developer of course, but by Apple.
that was only the power to the energy measuring device i believe.
The feature and bug of the OSGI experience is its rather coarse granularity. It’s finer grained than, say, a WAR, but obviously much different than something akin to the Smalltalk or, to a lesser extent, Common Lisp.

That said, make no mistake, an OSGI module can easily fall into that sweet spot of compiling and reloading fast enough to fall within the cognitive loop of effectively being “instant”.

And if you organize your code well, other parts of the overall app are (mostly) unaware something has changed. Java can be quite dynamic but has not formalized things like dynamic class change lifecycle. OSGI does expose that, and lets the rest of the code tap into that so it can handle change more robustly.
How many connections to Spotify did you want to keep open simultaneously?
There will be a lot of great, award-winning things — art, tech, law, theory — produced using AI, with varying degrees of involvement. Some we know for certain will have been produced using AI, others we will not. If the end product is somehow beautiful, productive or interesting, I don’t think I’ll care. The doomers might have a point. The puritans might have value in their own domain — a niche for 100% made-by-human stuff. But AI is here and it’s neat to watch.
Your examples do not make sense on prem existed long before cloud and some shops were perfectly fine with it. If the police were producing perfectly fine cars and then they went for a car share program then I would argue that yes it may be reasonable for them to consider going back to producing cars.
All fields are graphs.

We do calculus to predict behavior in fields.

We observe metrics and conservational symmetry
(or not) over paths in fields.

Nonlinearity is approximated with backpropagation.

What are field operators (graph operators)?
Yes, a one-letter difference seems easy to miss.
So the right wing isn't trying to gut public education and healthcare? I just hallucinated charter school vouchers and all their attempts to repeal the ACA?
I don't think Bezos is the one that came up with these idiotic corporate policies.
Mozilla's position on these specs is nicely outlined publicly and transparently as part of their standards-positions project: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/100

I'm kinda glad it's not implemented in my browser, to be honest, because the whole thing seems like a security nightmare.

It's a shame it impacts some hobby usecases, but I don't think this outweighs the reasoning set out on the GitHub issue.
This is one thing slack does right, if an account doesn’t post for a month you don’t get charges for it
> C in IoT stands for “cost-effective” I guess.

Thanks, that got a laugh out of me.
Yeah, the procedures regarding fire were also bad. 'Swissair Flight 111' changes a lot.
Govts can continue to subsidies farmers, harvest sunlight with solar panels and and get paid. Its a lot better than harvesting sunlight with plants, instead of farming 2 times/year, a solar panel will produce for 25+ years.
Case: The Ford Pinto
The company that made such a huge fuss over the idea of one-click presumably appreciates the effects of gauntlet-of-confusing-clicks. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Licensing
Why do we assume scaling can happen only on cloud? Gov sites are usually very low tech. We are not mining crypto. I would guess even if they outright bought servers and just scrap them later on they would come ahead.