skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The article starts off with the real problem in SF, but doesn't really expand on it... NIMBY neighbors.

Anyone can file a complaint about anything and the city has to follow up on it until the problem is resolved. This isn't just residential, but also commercial.

It doesn't matter if you're doing things within the code or not, as soon as you are on the city radar, you are in for a world of trouble. Obviously, if you're on the edge of code, as this guy was, it is even worse cause you're not going to "win", without spending a lot of time and money.

All the while, crime, homeless and drug use is out of control, because "that isn't my department." The city is too busy dealing with absurd cases like this. SF is broken and needs to hit rock bottom before it'll ever have a chance of being worthwhile again.
I love GEB. It is a masterpiece. But it is important to realize before diving into it that one of the things that makes it a masterpiece is that it is literary, that is, that it contains a wealth of detail that is, strictly speaking, unnecessary to the main point. Drawing a parallel between GEB and James Joyce's Ulysses is actually quite a good analogy. Indeed, Ulysses is almost nothing but "unnecessary detail", to the extent that it makes the book all but unreadable (which, I think, is no small part of its appeal). If you're waiting for either GEB or Ulysses to hurry up and get to the mother fucking point, you're going to be waiting a long time. In that regard, both books are good for techies to read because every now and then it's good to read something that drags you out of your comfort zone and futzes around in all kinds of obscure nooks and crannies before getting to the mother fucking point -- if indeed it ever does. Getting to the point can be important, but there is more to life (and literature).
It’s fundamentally different. Testing in a dynamic language will never ensure that your variable always holds a string and never a number. Compiling a statically-typed language however does exactly that. This difference is the same for all checks a compiler performs.

It’s important to understand that difference, because otherwise you may think that testing and the static analysis performed by a compiler are interchangeable. They are not.
One could probably look at steam stats, using their categories, user ratings and license info to see if "open" gives any extra kick to the user feedback. Dunno if theres enough data there for really valid conclusions.

Certainly there's places where "open source" isn't the advantage it is for say, compilers and network infrastructure. I'd love my car's software to be accessible and hackable; for example... But I'm happier that I am not required to think about it, to the point that I'm not terribly concerned I can't modify it.
The word choice is peculiar, but I found this [1] explanation helpful.

[1] https://eugeniacheng.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/cheng-mo...
Even static pages can get to be too large with a certain number of rows and would benefit from a variant of HTML’s table element that automatically recycles rows while displaying static data.

The problem isn’t the size of the transmitted data but the strain the resulting page puts on the browser engine due to the huge number of DOM nodes.
I'm also struggling with it despite having it on my bookshelf for a while. Not an easy read. It's cited and referred to all over the place, so maybe it's worth getting through it.
… this C is code is just a case exemplar of the problems with C.

We have `l` and `1` being used in the same passage. Single letter variables are bad to start with, but `l` is particularly cursed since, if you happen to be using a font where `l` and `1` are homoglyphs, good luck reading that passage. But that's sadly the default in a number of OSes/environments, and indeed, the site this code is hosted on. One might presume `l` stands for length, … but there's also `vl`, `bufsize` and `sizeof bufs`. `bufs` and `buf`, although the former, `bufs`, is a singular buffer, leading one to wonder why the variable name is pluralized. I'm pretty such it's because it's stack-allocated (as opposed to the heap alloc'd `buf`, and thus `bufs` is "buf[fer], s[tack]". This is just nuts, and it should be no surprise there are multiple CVEs.

The OG code was had CVEs. The commit that "introduced" this — which I almost feel is wrong to say — attempted to use `bufsize` for the buffer size, which certainly feels more right that the OG, but alas, the variable is never meaningfully initialized. This CVE is on the patch to fix a CVE! And in the original CVE's bug report, the ominous words of "Doesn't seem too serious" were uttered.

I'm sure it's fixed now, though, right?

syslog is just a bad interface logging interface, to boot.
> You can just not use a straw.
This thought process is the problem. Solutions must benefit all parties. Telling one party to go without and deal with it creates resentment.
I was wondering how frequently cork can be harvested from a tree: 9 years

Also, it sounds like the CO2 extraction is increased in order to regrow the bark.

https://corkhouse.com/blogs/blog/the-cork-bark-lifecycle
Yes and no.

They are recyclable. But because of their low weight, high amounts of contamination, and constant ability to get stuck in conveyor belts... Thin plastic bags are more trouble than they are worth.

It's like Aluminum foil. Recycling plants are paid per ton of recycled material, and it takes lots and lots of aluminum foil before a ton of Aluminum is saved up.

Except plastic is way harder to recycle than Aluminum (requires higher purities).
Does this apply to both types of transformers? Decepticons and Autobots?
> Autistic people, by their own account and by well documented empirical evidence, express and demonstrate challenges with understanding sarcasm, irony, nonverbal cues, idioms, figures of speech, etc.

Last year I was officially diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Level 1, which closely aligns with what was once categorized as Asperger's Syndrome.

What you're saying is a generalization I would've made at one point, and may very well be true of other people with ASD. It's generally not true for me, and in fact, I feel like I have a preternatural sense for what I think linguists call "pragmatics". I grant that I may have had to reverse-engineer my way to that understanding, since I don't know how more neurotypical people experience them.
I want to say we brought on 1s around 90 but in full honesty that's just my assumption and what I would probably pay one if I signed the check.

I have had a lot of SWE 1 friends who wanted to move to SRE 1 and it's around 20k less than they want. They're usually around 90-120.

Which one is the best decision long term is very subjective.
Personally I think an SRE needs far more experience in various things than a SWE so they should be someone further along in their career.

My first sysadmin job (around 2005-6 I think) was $40k, but I went from $12.50 so I was happy. Very SR SREs are in the 250s+ easy. Datadog and the faangs etc are in the 300ks.
Cleaned the gutters, too.
The US has Mk38 canon on lots of ships. The Mod3 added radar. Its primary focus is against small boats and could probably work against USV that Ukraine has been using against Russia. I hope the Navy is working in modifying to work against small and medium drones.

The other thing that might help against drones are the automated weapons stations hat are on lots of vehicles. I think I read about project to add radar and automated targeting of drones.
Ask HN: Seeking guidance on selling my hobby project on Acquire.com
Hey HN community,

A few weeks ago, I created Xplained, an AI-based answering engine that uses web data and LLM to provide responses (like perplexity). I am planning to sell my hobby project on Acquire.com and could use your advice.

What are your experiences with selling projects? How did you determine the valuation, pitch to buyers, and ensure a smooth sale process?

I'm looking for practical tips and insights to navigate this transition effectively.

Appreciate your guidance!
What in your humble opinion is a real issue that should be addressed instead?
I solved this problem by using Qubes OS. Different Firefox instances for different tasks run in dedicated VMs, with independent configs and extensions. It allowed to better organize my digital live and provided more security at the same time.
Very healthy except for 6-8th graders, you mean
There's a strong bias toward confirmation. First, they fully expect it and are looking for it.

Most of all, the actual professional - like any professional - has learned that it's unproductive to debate or educate the patient/customer; you just let them think they're smart and work around it. It's not your job to teach them the error of their ways, but to get your work done.

In IT, I've had plenty of clients tell me the most ludicrous nonsense. You just work around it; IT is your job, not theirs; don't humiliate them. Be respectful to people; they have hard days too.
This is touching on the crux of it: entitlement. Unfortunately, entitlement is quite on brand for us westerners these days.
"MIT and IBM Find Clever AI Ways Around Brute-Force Math" (2024) https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/mathematical-model-ai-26671392... :

> The scientists tested what they called physics-enhanced deep surrogate (PEDS) models on three kinds of physical systems. These included diffusion, such as a dye spreading in a liquid over time; reaction-diffusion, such as diffusion that might take place following a chemical reaction; and electromagnetic scattering.

> The researchers found these new models can be up to three times as accurate as other neural networks at tackling partial differential equations. At the same time, these models needed only about 1,000 training points. This reduces the training data required by at least a factor of 100 to achieve a target error of 5 percent.

"Physics-enhanced deep surrogates for partial differential equations" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-023-00761-y :

> Abstract: Many physics and engineering applications demand partial differential equations (PDE) property evaluations that are traditionally computed with resource-intensive high-fidelity numerical solvers. Data-driven surrogate models provide an efficient alternative but come with a substantial cost of training. Emerging applications would benefit from surrogates with an improved accuracy–cost tradeoff when studied at scale. Here we present a ‘physics-enhanced deep-surrogate’ (PEDS) approach towards developing fast surrogate models for complex physical systems, which is described by PDEs. Specifically, a combination of a low-fidelity, explainable physics simulator and a neural network generator is proposed, which is trained end-to-end to globally match the output of an expensive high-fidelity numerical solver. Experiments on three exemplar test cases, diffusion, reaction–diffusion and electromagnetic scattering models, show that a PEDS surrogate can be up to three times more accurate than an ensemble of feedforward neural networks with limited data (approximately 103 training points), and reduces the training data need by at least a factor of 100 to achieve a target error of 5%. Experiments reveal that PEDS provides a general, data-driven strategy to bridge the gap between a vast array of simplified physical models with corresponding brute-force numerical solvers modelling complex systems, offering accuracy, speed and data efficiency, as well as physical insights into the process.
> The way I internalize it: public voting selects for layman plausibility, not correctness.

To lend credence to this idea, I reflexively upvoted you despite not having read any experts on this voting phenomenon.
A Lancastrian (bomber design conversion to airliner) disappeared in the Andes. Decades later bits were found on a glacier. A Trans Canada North Star (same Merlin engines as the Lancastrian) flew into Mt Slesse in 1956. Fragmented debris was discovered by climbers the next spring. Scattered pieces blend in very well on talus slopes.
Because, in my purely anecdotal experience, drivers got much much worse in early June of 2020.

Not April 2020. Not July 2020. June (and very late May) of 2020.

Part of the issue was that lots of roads were blocked. Both protestors and police were blocking roads. Large portions of downtown were shut down. Bus services were mostly canceled. And the police were very very stretched thin.

So there are reasons other than “attitude” why these protests might be affecting traffic.

But it was shocking how bad drivers got so quickly. It didn’t seem gradual.
Also these environmental laws come from a place of non-rigorous fanciful thinking, ie. the paper straw push was pushed by some hollywood celebrity and never took into account that paper straws are loaded with forever chemicals, and are useless with shakes or drinks that take a long time to finish. The gas stove bans are beyond absurd, the claims are that they cause asthma and lung problems but I bought a few air quality meters and ran my gas stove at full blast with no discernible degradation registered on these meters. In addition going full electric leads to a non-redundancy in heating and cooling which pushes a greater strain on the electric grid and if said grid fails(see california) people are completly without heat or cooling. Lastly they push enormous costs onto individuals for miniscule gains.
And to be fair Hofstadter got the message and wrote "I Am a Strange Loop" for people who just want the to the point version.
> Compiling Rust Is Testing

Why does it always fails with some dependencies issues ?

If rust is so good, why does an old rust compiler (1.58) cannot compile a new rust (1.70) compiler ?
I dont recall math equations but it's been a while
Containerization doesn't protect at all against privilege escalation.
And AppArmor is a very partial improvement.

The way to protect against this is with an external supervisor. But then you have to care about privilege escalations attacks against the supervisor. Hopefully that one is much simpler than Linux so it has much fewer vulnerabilities.
Everyone is focused on the graffiti and not on the fact that these skyscrapers are sitting there unfinished and empty for years because of poor management. That is the real story here.

You normally see stuff like this in developing countries... not in the middle of one of the largest cities in America.
Other common terms are “broker” or “agent”. I pay the agent. He deals with the local bureaucracy. He knows what things should cost.
The Math Behind Alice in Wonderland
I loved GEB, I read it twice and found it mind-blowing.

That said, I don't think it was life-changing in the sense that it gave me any interesting perspective on life in any way. I didn't find any of the philosophies to be useful in that sense.

However, what the book does do, is manage to explain an incredibly complex, deep mathematical theorem while using almost no mathematical notation. It does it all mostly through similes and wordplay and art, which is quite brilliant.

One of the great things about the book is that even if you give up on the math, you can still appreciate each chapter as clever writing in its own right.
It was so effective they even made a sequel: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hUCyvw4w_yk
I think that'd be a great idea, an "FDroid for extensions": A store that serves exactly the code in the repo. Sadly I don't think Chrome/Firefox allow building this as an extension itself.
It's only redundant in languages that make it redundant, like you mentioned C at the end - it's the new line that's redundant there (or only for readability), it's the semicolon with the 'end' semantics.
I think opens source is still what users want even if they don't want to work on the software. It allows your investment not to go away with whatever company is making it or worse by becoming spyware or subscription based.

That said I think the post asked an important question about what makes users able to contribute and grow applications better.

I think extensibility is correct but the reason it's correct isn't because c++ is hard (though it is). Without stable well documented APIs programming extensions is not a good investment because all that work gets thrown away the moment the project changes it for their needs.

I would argue that Chrome and Firefox extensions are bad investments since they depend on applications for which the API decisions are controlled and directed unilaterally by their organizations and if they aren't being good stewards of those APIs (see manifest v3) you'd need to maintain your own fork of either of those large applications yourself.
I would say give yourself license to skip some stuff, the parable stuff (for instance) is either super fun or a chore, depending on the mood you are in. A lot of the Achilles stuff is more akin to poetry instead of an illuminating guide.
Ask me how I know you didn't read the article.
Does being able to do what you love, or being passionate about your work, come from a place of privilege? I'm not convinced. I know people who envy me at times, and often I think, why don't or didn't they follow a similar path? I think loving what you do comes mostly after feeling fulfilled from doing serious studying, a lot of working and quite some discipline. This love does not appear by itself. Just as in relationships, it takes continuous investment.
> Why not just send a wall of metal at the drone from one of these things? If not that, why not traditional anti-aircraft fire, with projectiles that explode in shrapnel clouds?

If this had been the 1950s or early 60s, every advanced military on the planet would have been able to do exactly that.

However, both aircraft (MiG-19+) and missiles were speeding up.

At some speed, it becomes impractical to solve a high-speed aircraft or missile problem with a gun. [0]

Consequently, development from the 70s on turned to missiles capable of dealing with these threats.

Which left the only remaining systems mostly consequences of failure to upgrade (e.g. the German Gepard).

As the saying goes, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes...

[0] See: M19 (1945) > M42 (1953) > MIM-46 (1960-63, cancelled) > M-163 (1965) > MIM-72 (1967)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M19_Multiple_Gun_Motor_Carri... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M42_Duster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-46_Mauler https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M163_VADS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-72_Chaparral
It is literally a type of religious ritual to the Earth gods.

The point is not that it helps or doesn't help, the point is "we have to do something!"

Just like it is obvious from a breakdown of the data that is beyond stupid to send one giant diesel burning truck to pick up "garbage" then another giant diesel truck to pick up tin cans and cardboard at a net energy loss. Of course, it is impossible to stop this even if it would be rational thing to do.

"we have to do something!"
Regular frenzy, or reckless rage?
I love this book. It definitely changed the way I think and made me ask important questions. Bonus: it got me listening to Bach at the time.
Same. It has the exact same junior high-school giddiness of excitement as The Martian, another book that I just couldn't tonally work my way through.

I don't mind books that explain concepts in fun ways, but I do find it jarring if I'm being treated like a child with an overbearing parent, telling me why I should be excited about something instead of just telling the story and letting me feel how I want to feel about it.
Tesla is five times bigger than all the public companies in Texas
Maybe the book went over my head but it didn't live up to my expectations. The book's thesis seemed to boil down to "isn't recursion cool, maybe it has something to do with consciousness". I did enjoy some of the digressions though.
Yeah I imagine apps have filled the niche that for whatever reason was unserviceable by credit cards.
I like the Deno runtime approach more than Node, but that's another issue. I find JS/TS is pretty great for ETL and input data validation and transformation where the flexibility of the language and io streams lend themselves to that work. Not to mention when you need a slightly different script.

I also like the expressiveness and productivity I get out of it. Though many of my issues with C# comes down to the culture in practice more than the language.

C# is better when you have more firm constraints and the coffee will be longer lived and worth the complexity. It's just the difference between a script and a full program/application with all that involved in the
Net space.

My point was mostly that. Net is still pretty good for things in Linux even without a blessed, official desktop UI framework.
GEB is crucial reading in that if you want to appear intellectually superior all you have to do is sprinkle “Ho ho! Much like the eternal golden braid I must say!” into conversation and no one will call you out on it or ask you to extrapolate (or if in the off chance that they do, you can say anything and still get away with it)

The best response to someone bringing up GEB in casual conversation is to look them dead in the eye and simply say “I have also read that book.”

This will instantly create palatable tension and a change of topic
In at least the original landmark replication study, the studies actually replicated very well, but (~60% of the time) the signal wasn't as strong in the replicated study as in the original reported results.

That tells us a lot both ways. Also, while they are valuable, the error could be in the replication study.
Which distribution?
Jeff Bezos phone hacking incident
A very simple answer: users do not know that they want classic desktop systems, where the OS was a single application and apps was just bits of code inside it. Let's take modern Emacs as an example.

Unfortunately most modern devs do not know that as well. People lost the concept of working in a live framework where pushing just few bit of code suffice to bend their environment. You can automate Emacs without knowing much of it, and without any specific DSL or limited interface for scripting. That's the point that fusion both views, the devs with the full sources and build process vs the users and a specific live instance of a program.

Please try to rediscover such classic tech, because that's anyway the future, those who understand it now are just 10+ years in the future.
Framing it like that makes it much more simplistic than reality. While there are some people you can clearly place into "best" or "worst", most people fit somewhere along a spectrum where their placement changes day to day. You ever had a bad day where you forgot to do something you would have done any other day?

Do you want software that allows you to do anything on a good day but is potentially catastrophic on a bad day?

The answer may still be yes, but regardless it's a more complicated a question than best vs worst.
Surprised that people have begun using Threads. First time seeing the site here (as well as my social circle)
I don't recall them being security-related researchers though, but there are obviously security concerns, I agree.
Erm, I am fine being considered a freak. But what I am talking about is, that a very high percentage of computer freaks do not go out and talk to people who do not have anything to do with computers. I remember the day I walked into my university and first IT classes and thought, "wow, they actually do live the cliché". I mean, that is fine by me, everyone should live the way they want. But if you want to make an impact beyond your circle of devs, you might want to learn to communicate with people who are happy, that they manage to turn their computer on. Because they are not dumb, they just have other priorities.